Intersection
by Elesariin
Summary: In which Doctor and his companions have a run in with the Doctor and his companions, and something goes very, very wrong. Takes place between The Girl in the Fireplace and Rise of The Cybermen, and between Vampires of Venice and Amy's Choice.
1. Chapter 1: Memory

Chapter 1: Memory

* * *

"So, basically, this whole thing is the end result of a lunar colony that was established about four billion two hundred and thirty three thousand years into your future. Earth's still around—bit crowded—but humanity has perfected the terraforming process, and… Rory?"

Rory blinked, looking stunned and more than a little dazed, and slowly focused on the Doctor's face. "… Yeah?"

The Doctor raised his eyebrows. "You alright?"

Rory stared around at the buzzing metropolis, complete with a little children's park that had purple grass and floating play equipment in neon colors that literally glowed. As he looked a woman passed by… except that she had thick poisonous looking green spikes where her face should have been. "… Oh, you know…" he said, still sounding a trifle vague.

The Doctor exchanged a half-amused, half exasperated glance with the lovely Miss Amy Pond, who was currently wearing a little gold and white sequined flapper dress from the early 20's, complete with long, matching beads. When he'd asked her about it, she'd just shrugged and looked sort of… flirtatious. Needless to say, he'd changed the subject. "Right. So… Terraforming process. You might have noticed that the plant life tends to be sort of purplish in color, which is actually a result of a chemical reaction that took place during the…" He paused, looking from Rory's still shell-shocked expression and Amy's impatiently tapping foot. "Oh, nevermind," he muttered, sounding more sullen than he would have liked. "Anything in particular that you want to see?"

"What about that antigravity restaurant?" Amy asked immediately, hazel eyes sparkling with excitement.

"…Maybe we should start with something a bit less i_nteractive_," the Doctor replied lightly, shooting a significant look at the still shell-shocked young man at her side, "This isn't exactly Renaissance-era Venice."

Amy made a face and elbowed Rory in the side. "Ow!" he said at once, and then spluttered, "I mean—yes. I'm fine. I—"

"Culture shock," the Doctor all but chirped, "Awful to experience, _really_ fun to watch. Let's try… over there." Without waiting for a response, he strolled off toward what looked like a long line of fast-food restaurants. Behind him, he could hear Amy scolding Rory like a cross mother with a particularly naughty child.

Quite suddenly, he came to a dead stop.

Amy, who apparently had been too busy with Rory to be paying strict attention, ran right into his back, and he stumbled forward a step. He honestly barely even noticed. From very far away, he heard Amy ask, "Doctor? What's wrong?" Something was…

"Something's wrong," he said slowly, then drew in a deep breath of air, almost like he was attempting to catch a sent on the surprisingly clean, fresh wind. "… Do you feel it?" He paused, though not to wait for any sort of response. He was trying to put his finger on—

"Doctor…" Amy was starting to sound nervous.

Without looking at her, he swallowed. Whatever this was… "Don't you fell like… we shouldn't be here?" It wasn't a terrifying feeling, not like with the Angels, or the Daleks; it was just… disquieting.

"Should we go?" That was from Rory. He sounded hesitant, like he wasn't sure if that was even an option.

That snapped him out of it. "Oh, no," he replied, making an abrupt return to his normal, lighthearted calm, "…It's probably nothing." And even if it wasn't, it probably wasn't anything he couldn't handle.

* * *

Mickey Smith stumbled out of the TARDIS, followed by an unhealthy amount of billowing black smoke. Coughing, he leaned against an obliging wall. He was immediately followed by Rose, who was holding the sleeve of her pink cotton jacket over her mouth and nose in an attempt to filter the air a bit. From inside the machine came the sounds of struggling machinery and a very indignant man repeatedly saying things like, "That's impossible!" and "No, no, no, no, NONONO!"

A few seconds after that, the Doctor ran out after them, coughing almost as violently as Mickey was, his hair even more of a mess than it was usually, with his long brown coat only half on and smudged with what looked like soot. The expression on his face was one of intense frustration. "That—" Cough. "Was complete—" Cough cough.

"Rubbish," snapped Mickey, even more irritated than the Doctor was. "Rose, why do you—" Cough. "Love this so much? All I hear about is the travelin', and the 'beautiful views'. Oh, yeah. Some great life this is!"

"Stop it," Rose told him sharply, and then walked over to the Doctor, whose face was turning bright red with so much coughing. "Are you alrigh'?" she asked, her tone hesitant and gentle and… _pitying_. Her hand reached out to brush his shoulder.

He flinched away reflexively. "Fine." Suddenly he frowned, and it was much more thoughtful and much less irritable than it had been a second before. "… Where did we end up, anyway?" His eyes flicked over to the purple grass in the children's play area, and he blinked. "We're on Achilles 7."

If Rose had been hurt by his unwillingness to be touched, it didn't sound like it. "Where's that?"

He ran a hand through his hair and brought out his spectacles automatically as he leaned forward to examine a purple-leafed, blue-blossomed rose bush. "It's a moon. A terraformed one, obviously. Specifically, we're in a system that's… Do you know where Betelgeuse is?" He glanced from Rose to Mickey. Both of them looked blank. He fought against the urge to roll his eyes, and succeeded with extreme difficulty. "Well it's in a system that's just to the left of that. Come on," he added, sounding passably cheerful as he picked a direction and started walking, folding his glasses back into his pocket as he did. "Look, Rose! Cronkburgers!"

She hurried to catch up with him, though she didn't make her usual, almost automatic attempt to catch his hand in hers, and made a face. "Brilliant. Where are we goin'?"

"No idea," he replied honestly, maneuvering his other arm into the free sleeve of his brown coat, "But the TARDIS needs to cool off for a bit before we can try moving again."

"What happened?"

"No idea," he repeated, sounding far too cheerful.

"… No idea?"

"Nope!" He stopped at one of those little street stalls, briefly picked up something that looked for all the world like a high-tech snow globe, then set it back down and continued. "Although I suppose that it could have been damaged by all of the time manipulation that was happening on that ship."

He could feel Rose studying his face. "… The one with Madame Du Pompadour?" she asked carefully.

And then he felt his face go carefully blank without any sort of conscious decision being made on his part. "… Yeah." And there it was again. The pity. He didn't want to look at her, because then he would see her feeling sorry for him, and—"The TARDIS is very sensitive to anomalies like that. What those clockwork dolls were doing—it wasn't supposed to happen. It's against the laws of space and time."

He paused. "Anyway, it shouldn't be much of a problem; we'll just… shop for a bit, wait for the TARDIS to fix itself, and then…" He shot her a grin. It was a little strained, but it was there. "Anywhere you want, Rose Tyler." She smiled back at him, then Mickey snorted irritably and both of their smiles brightened into things that were just barely holding back gales of laughter. "Something interesting has to be going on around here. Actually… I think I know just the thing."

* * *

The Doctor froze. Blonde. A flash of… No, just because somebody was blonde… and wearing a pink jacket… Next to—

His eyes widened, and he immediately spun around so that his back was toward the approaching trio. Unfortunately, this meant that both Amy and Rory got a very clear look at his utterly panic-stricken expression. Amy instantly went very still, looking almost as frightened as he did. "Doctor…?" Rory just looked puzzled, glancing from one paralyzed face to the other.

"I don't remember this," he muttered, his eyes darting about as though searching for some miraculous means of escape. "How can I not remember this? I don't remember this!" Finally, his eyes focused on Amy's face, and he reached forward to grasp her shoulders. "Amy. Listen very closely. I am your boyfriend." Amy's eyebrows shot up, and he quickly continued before she could do… anything. "Specifically, I'm Rory. If anybody asks, that's who I am. We're engaged. We're going to be very happy. Because I'm Rory. Got it?" Her eyes still very wide, she nodded. It was the kind of nod that you gave a crazy person to convince them that you understood, and that they incidentally didn't need to feed you to their goldfish as a result.

"Hold on," Rory began slowly, quiet anger in his voice, "What the hell is that supposed to—"

"Trust me!"

Rory looked like he wanted to shout, but instead he whispered. It was a rather violent sort of whisper, true, but still a whisper. "Then who am I supposed to be?"

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "You're clever; _make something up!_" It was entirely possible that the rapidly approaching threesome would simply pass them by. This whole thing was probably completely unnecessary. The fact that he couldn't remember visiting Achilles 7 with Rose and Mickey didn't _have_ to be ominous; maybe he'd hit his head after he left… or something. They were probably going to pass right by, and—

"Hullo! Do you happen to know where the Cajalaria Antigravity Restaurant is?" The Doctor closed his eyes, let out a slow breath, and turned around. There _he_ was, and there was Mickey, and there was…

"Sorry," Amy—that brilliant Amy Pond—replied calmly, "We're tourists ourselves." She hadn't noticed the similarities between That Doctor's outfit and what he'd been wearing when he'd first met her. Hopefully, she never would, and that lot would just swan off to meet Madame Du Pompadour, or whatever they were supposed to do next.

His younger self beamed, delighted. Had his smile really been _that_ wide? He looked a bit… _manic_, didn't he? Rassilion, this was humbling. "Really? Brilliant! Where from? I'm the Doctor, by the way, and this is…" The Doctor flinched unconsciously as his two companions seemed to choke on the air they were breathing. Oooooh, no. Luckily, the other Doctor was too busy introducing Rose and Mickey to notice facial expressions. Rose, however, was not. The Doctor saw her eyes sharpen, and quickly turned his own down towards the ground. This was not going to end well, was it?

"I- I'm Amy," Amy informed them, sounding somewhat wooden, now, "And this is my fiancée, Rory." He felt her hand on his shoulder, and he glanced up at the three of them for a fraction of a second, flashing an equally brief wave. "And this is our friend… John Smith." The Doctor flinched again and groaned before he could stop himself. It wasn't her fault; she didn't know. He hadn't needed to go undercover while she'd been with him.

"Alright there, Rory?" his younger self asked, still sounding cheerfully and innocently interested. There was an undertone to it, though, that he knew all too well; regeneration number ten knew that something was up. He probably didn't know _what_ was up, yet, but…

He flashed a brief, rather cool little smile without meeting those eerily familiar brown eyes. "Bit of a headache," he replied evenly.

Amy, who seemed to be at a bit of a loss without her usual, talkative Doctor, flashed a strained smile. "Right. Well… good luck with it."

"Likewise," That Doctor told her, sounding sincere. Amy turned and started walking in a seemingly random direction, and, after a nod from the real Rory, her 'boys' also turned around and followed her. The Doctor was just starting to relax, when—"Rory!" The real Rory, thankfully, paused but did not look back. The Doctor noted this, stopped, and glanced over his shoulder. The other Doctor had a curious, intense look in his eyes that did not go with the detached but friendly look on his face. The Doctor knew how it _felt_ to look like that, but he'd never seen the expression from the outside. It was really, really weird, and he shivered unconsciously. "Nice bowtie."

The Doctor blinked, then smiled in spite of himself. "Yes, it is." Then he hurried after Amy and Rory. They would have to keep going until they hit an intersection, and then they could double back and find the TARDIS. They would leave, and his past self would never get to figure this one out. It was going to be fine… except for the part where he had to explain the whole 'regeneration' thing to Amy; he really wasn't looking forward to that. Maybe she wouldn't ask!

… _Right._

_

* * *

_

The odd, nervous group walked on, and Mickey crossed his arms. "What was that, then?" he asked gruffly, obviously trying not to sound like he much cared.

Rose looked up into her Doctor's face, her expression searching. "Trouble?"

The Doctor, who had been watching the retreating backs of the so-called tourists with a curiously intense expression, looked down at her, trying not to look as excited as he felt. This was big; he could tell. "Oh, yes."


	2. Chapter 2: Changed

Chapter 2: Changed

* * *

"…So?"

The Doctor shot a glance at Amy, trying to gauge her expression. "…So?" he repeated, trying his best to look innocently puzzled by the steely look in her eye and the hard set of her jaw.

"What was that?" she snapped, practically running to keep up with his brisk, long-legged walk. She didn't sound fooled. At all.

"Erm…" He tugged awkwardly at his earlobe and tried to think of a viable subject change.

"He said he was the Doctor. Not 'A' doctor. THE Doctor. How can he be the Doctor? You're the Doctor, and HE'S not YOU, now is he?" The Doctor winced a little at that. Amy noticed, and out of the corner of his eye, he noticed her go very pale. "… Mad. That's completely—HOW CAN HE BE YOU?"

"He's not!" Rory put in, struggling to stay alongside the other two on the busy sidewalk and sounding like he was struggling to hang onto the thread of the conversation. "It's probably just a title, or something. Like… 'Father' for priests."

The Doctor blinked, and then craned his neck around Amy to get a clear look at her boyfriend. "That makes sense. Well done, Rory!"

Amy pursed her lips, her eyes hard. "Is that true?"

"…Sort of…" he replied enigmatically._ …Not really at all._ "Oh, look! Bananas!" Delighted, he took one of the bright yellow fruits from a tall pile of similar, earth-grown produce, peeling it with an easy, practiced movement. "Probably imported, since it's lacking the purple—"

"Are you just going to take that?" Rory interrupted, indignant.

"Do you really expect me to believe that?" Amy snapped immediately afterward. Those pretty hazel eyes of hers were narrowed into dangerous slits.

"Your face will get stuck that way if you're not careful," he told her seriously, and then gave Rory a quick, rather smug little smile before taking an enormous bite of the banana.

Immediately, he spat it right back out.

Several people around the little group yelled, or made sounds of disgust. Rory was one of them. Ignoring them, the Doctor spat again. "Rubbish," he muttered. And he'd LOVED bananas. Actually, when at Amy's house back when she'd been an adorable—and not angry OR relentlessly seductive- eight-year-old, he'd refrained from asking for bananas specifically because he hadn't wanted to risk not liking them. Just now, though, it had just been automatic, and…

He glanced over at Amy, who was watching him with a curious, intent expression. After meeting his eyes for a few seconds, she looked back the way they'd come, and then back at him. "… How did you not know that you wouldn't like apples?"

Uh Oh. "Um…"

"Or yogurt," she added quickly, "Or Bacon. Or beans. Or bread and butter. Or BANANAS." Her face was challenging, but there was an excited, almost feverish light in those lovely eyes, like she was positive that she was seconds away from answering a question she'd had for _years_.

He opened his mouth, then shut it again, and then opened it again. "Well…"

"You said," she continued slowly, ignoring his attempts at excuse-making, "That it was a whole new mouth. Something like that."

"… Did I?"

"Amy," began Rory, touching her shoulder in a calming sort of gesture.

She shrugged him off. "That wasn't just a figure of speech, was it? It was—"

"In here," the Doctor said abruptly, grabbing both of them by the shoulders and steering them into a little alley that was easily the easiest thing to miss on the street, especially since it was surrounded by such colorful little shops.

"What are we—" began Amy. The Doctor shushed her at once, bringing a hand up to lightly cover her mouth.

"But—" Rory started, and then subsided as the Doctor gave him an irritated look before turning back to watch the street intently.

A minute or so later, the group from before—the pretty girl with shoulder-length, dyed blonde hair and too much eye-makeup, the black boy with the close-cropped hair and the sullen expression, and the energetic man with the brown hair and the light brown coat—came into view. The girl looked half amused and half annoyed, the boy looked… well, sullen, and the man looked surprised and very confused. He was glancing about from side to side, obviously looking for something. A second or two later, they went on by.

The Doctor relaxed. Just as he'd hoped, he knew himself exactly that well. "Right. So. We're going to double around and go back to the TARDIS. We'll have to go to get lunch on another moon."

Amy peeled his hand off of her face and pushed it away. "Why?" she growled.

"Because that was me," he told her calmly, "And I'd rather not run into him again. Or his TARDIS. Particularly his TARDIS; hole in the universe the size of Belgium and all that." Smiling politely in the face of his companions' utter shock, he turned and started walking back the way they'd come, cheerfully whistling Ride of the Valkyries.

* * *

"That's it," the Doctor finally admitted, stopping in the middle of the stream of people and running a frustrated hand through his unruly hair, "I have no idea where they went."

"Right, then. Can we go?" Mickey growled, crossing his arms tightly across his chest.

"No, but it was…" The Doctor trailed off, looking anxiously from side to side, as though hoping that his quarry would magically appear.

Rose slowly made her way over to stand beside him and lightly brushed a hand against his arm, seeming unsure if it was alright to touch him, now. "Doctor? Who were they?"

He barely noticed the physical contact at all, which was particularly significant because any physical contact with Rose Tyler was usually enough to make his hearts speed up noticeably. Still looking from side to side, he distractedly muttered, "They didn't belong here, Rose, anymore than we do." Suddenly his eyes focused on her completely. "Did you notice the girl's dress?"

Rose blinked. "… It was…"

"It was a perfect replica of a dress from the 1920's," he informed her, not waiting for her to finish trying to figure it out. Then he frowned. "Actually, I have exactly the same dress in the TARDIS' wardrobe."

Rose gasped. "I've _seen_ that dress," she breathed, her eyes going briefly out of focus. They snapped back to his face the next second. "What does that mean, though?"

"Like I said," he told her, "They don't belong here. I mean, honestly; _John Smith?"_

Rose grinned. "Works for you, doesn't it?"

"Exactly. It's the most common name in the history of the human race, which makes it the most convenient cover. Whoever they are, they're time travelers."

"Could they be like Jack?" Rose asked, thinking hard, "Time Agents, I mean. Or former Time Agents."

"Could be. Either way, they're here for a reason; I need to find out what it is." He stuffed his hands into his pockets with an abrupt, frustrated motion. "Problem is," he continued ruefully, "I can't exactly do that if they've vanished into thin air."

"…It's funny," Rose began, frowning, her tone hesitant, "It almost looked like…"

He glanced over at her, immediately interested. "Like what?"

Blue green eyes came up to meet brown, and she shrugged. "…Like they knew your name," she concluded, sounding almost apologetic.

His eyebrows went up. "…Did it?" That was interesting. That was very, very interesting.

She self-consciously tucked a flyaway strand of gold hair behind one ear, and he felt a sudden, unreasoning, and frighteningly strong surge of affection. For that split second, he even forgot about the mysterious time travelers. "The girl and the more normal-lookin' bloke did, anyway. The shy one in the bow tie was just sor' of… quiet." She shrugged again.

"So…" he said slowly, thinking hard, "A girl from wearing a dress from the 1920's and a man named John Smith, both of whom know my name, but not what I look like… There's nothing _wrong_ either, apart from them; not that I can…" He trailed off, and was quiet for a long beat, and then clapped his hands abruptly, making both of his companions jump. "Oh, well. Supper?"

Mickey, who had been looking irritable and very left out, gave him a sidelong glance. "Wha'? Jus' like that?"

"Yup!" the Doctor replied cheerfully, turning and continuing back the way they'd come, "Just like that."

Rose, trying not to smile, jogged to catch up with him and automatically captured his hand. "What, are you having us on?" she asked playfully bumping into him with her shoulder.

He smiled a very broad, very warm smile that was somehow very different from his usual, madcap grin. "Rose Tyler, I am not having you on."

"No, but _really,_" she pressed.

"Maybe I just want to have supper!" he protested innocently, and then quickly added, "And… _maybe_ I expect that whatever our friends are waiting for will be very, very loud and very, very noticeable. So dinner, wait for loud explosions or screams or roars, get the check… And let's be honest," he told her in an earnest undertone, "That's usually what we do, anyway, except without the supper bit. So…" He lazily raised and lowered one shoulder. "We get supper now."

Rose rolled her eyes and beamed at him. His stomach did a funny, involuntary little flip. "You think you're so clever."

"Once again, I _know_ I'm so clever. Now, we have a choice between Indian food and Xiandiath cuisine, although I suppose we could…" He trailed off, his smile fading and his eyes slowly going very wide with realization and sudden fear. How stupid could somebody possibly get? "Nobody turn around," he began in a very quiet, pointedly calm voice, "Alright? Do not—Mickey," he added, shooting a sharp look in the other man's direction as he automatically started to glance about to look, "Do not turn around. If they find out we're onto them, we're dead."

"Doctor…?" Rose was looking up at him, her eyes at least as wide as his were. He could tell from her expression that she was trying to be brave, and felt a sudden, terrifying stab of absolute, mindless panic. "Was' goin' on?"

"Did anybody happen to notice," he replied in that same, soft, carefully even tone, "All of the aliens with the green, nasty-looking facial spikes?" As he spoke, he sped up just the slightest bit. As though that was going to help.

"Wha' about 'em?" Mickey asked, all gruffness gone in the face of actual danger.

"They're called the Aaunvithi, and they're a completely subterranean species from the planet Aaun, which is located in a star system of the same name. They have no visual perception at all, and navigate mostly by vibrations they feel with those spikes—honestly, they're really more like feelers—" Rose, still white as a sheet, gave him an impatient look. He swallowed and got back on topic. "Right. Sorry. Main point—they feel their way around, and communicate with one another on a purely telepathic level. Basically…" He paused, taking a deep breath. "They shouldn't be capable of functioning in this type of environment. Certainly not capable of space travel—just not how they're wired. They shouldn't be here at a—"

There was a rather ugly crack and a white flash of sharp pain, he felt his knees buckle, and then everything abruptly went utterly black. A moment after that, Rose called his name, but it sounded very far away, almost… echo…y. Echoie. Was that a word? … Probably not. Anyway, Rose sounded frightened, and it was very important that he get the lights working again so that he could help her—the doctor who makes people better—but… something… wrong… fuzzy…

* * *

Rory was spluttering almost incoherently. "But-How can he be you? He can't—wh—HOW can he be you? What does that mean, he's you?" Seeing that the Doctor was completely ignoring him, he snapped, "Doctor! We have a right to know! You can't just say something like that and then…" He made a sharp, helpless gesture to fill in for the word that he couldn't quite seem to spit out.

"WHISTLE," Amy finished for him, her eyes practically flaming.

The Doctor glanced over at the irate pair and reluctantly stopped whistling. "Well, normally I'm not much for Wagner myself," he admitted, "But—"

"Wagner isn't the point!" Amy looked like she was close to physically lashing out at him, she was so frustrated. "How can that man—back there—be you? Explain that! Now!"

The Doctor grimaced slightly. "Amy…"

"What?"

The grimace grew more pronounced. "… It's complicated…?" he tried hesitantly. Even as he said it, he knew that probably wasn't going to work.

"Do you really think that's going to work?" Amy hissed.

"It's true!" he protested, indignant, "It's very, very complicated. Besides which, I honestly don't think you'd believe me if I told you."

She lifted her chin stubbornly. "Try me."

He took a deep breath. "He's my last …incarnation."

"Don't be daft," Amy snapped at once, "Like… the Dali Lama?"

"Here we go," the Doctor muttered, rolling his eyes. "Look, just think about it like this; he's somebody from my past that shouldn't exist in the same time stream that I do. This is trouble waiting to happen, and with the cracks in the universe… thing… following us around, we just can't afford to take the chance. Alright?" The last word had a bit of a sharp undertone, but that couldn't be helped; he was tired of talking about this, and he didn't want to think about… things… and he wanted to get back into _his_ TARDIS and get something to eat. Was that really so much to ask?

Apparently so. "You have incarnations?" Rory asked, skepticism lightly lacing his words, "What does that mean, exactly? You die, and another you is immediately born in your place?"

"You said you weren't human," Amy put in.

The Doctor hesitated, running a hand through all that ridiculous hair—a habit from his previous self that he still hadn't lost—and thought. Maybe… maybe he ought to just tell them. Amy was already handling this better than Rose had. Of course, he hadn't exploded in front of Amy; she was basically just looking at the before and after pictures. … And it wasn't as though the situations were even remotely similar, anyway. Nevermind the parallels between Mickey and Rory; Amy wasn't like Rose. _…Rose…_

"DOCTOR!" The voice was sharp, desperate, terrified.

Familiar.

He automatically spun around, searching frantically with his eyes. "Rose?" It came out louder than he'd intended it to, like he was still traveling with her. Still responsible for her. He immediately checked himself, swallowing reflexively, and looked over to find Amy standing next to him.

She was looking up into his face in a disturbingly familiar way, right down to the searching, concerned expression. "… Trouble?"

He stared at her for a beat, then quietly replied, "Probably."

She raised an eyebrow, trying, he thought, to decipher his odd expression. "So… are we going to go check it out, then?"

He took a deep breath. "… No." It came out sounding firm. Certain. Which was good.

Amy blinked, then smiled uncertainly, her eyebrows practically disappearing into her hairline. She looked as though she was waiting for the punch line. "What do you mean, 'no?'"

With a monumental effort of will, the Doctor turned and continued walking back to the TARDIS. "I mean 'no.'"

"I don't get it," he heard Rory say quietly to Amy.

The next second, someone grabbed him by the shoulder and roughly spun him around again. Amy was glowering up at him like a pretty ginger tiger. "If that IS you," she snarled, "Or was, then you traveled with that girl. Rose. Right?"

The muscles in his jaw tightened. "Amy," he began quietly, his tone one of warning.

She either didn't hear it or decided to ignore it. "So you 're just going to leave her? Calling for you? Is this how it works?"

"She's not," he said slowly, distinctly, "Calling for me. She's calling for HIM. Alright? HIM. He has to handle this himself. I can't get involved. I already told you, our situation is too delicate as things are…"

His eyes focused on something behind Amy and slowly widened. It took him a second to process what he was seeing, but… Rose was standing in front of that daft little fruit stand, her arms spread defiantly, her face terrified despite her efforts to look brave. Behind her, his younger self was sprawled in a pile of bananas, all long limbs. His face was turned away from them, but the Doctor thought that he was probably unconscious. Fantastic. Mickey, meanwhile, was trying fruitlessly to tug Rose out of the way of…

Aliens. Hundreds of aliens armed with random bits of metal and wood. Aliens with spikes in place of—"Oh, no," he groaned, his eyes flinching shut. He was so incredibly stupid. This was completely unforgivable. First with the angels, and now…Rose was talking, saying something, but he couldn't hear her over the growing panic in the crowd. Any second, now, there was going to be a veritable stampede. He could, however, see her mouth moving. 'Doctor, wake up. Please wake up…'

He swallowed and turned back to Amy and Rory. "Right. On my signal, you two are going to go and grab the unconscious bloke in the pile of bananas. Then you are going to run and hide. Do not come out. Period. I will find you. Rory," he added, his words clipped, businesslike, "Make sure she doesn't come out."

Rory, looking rather stunned, nodded uncertainly. "What's the signal?"

The Doctor glanced at Amy and shot her a small smile. "You won't miss it." She automatically smiled back at him, and hers was much brighter than his. She trusted him more that he trusted himself. Taking a deep breath, he started through the crowd towards the group of aliens, pulling his sonic screwdriver out of his pocket and fiddling with the settings.

Now that he was getting closer, he could actually hear what Rose was saying. "You don' have to do this. My friend…" She swallowed and risked a glance behind her at the very still form in the bananas. "My friend, he's called the Doctor; he can help you. You don' have to… to…" The advancing alien horde raised its weapons, and she brought an arm up to shield her face.

And then the Doctor slipped his free hand into hers. Extending his screwdriver-arm up, he flicked it on, and all of the public address system went crazy. At the exact same moment, every single vehicle in the immediate vicinity started making loud, wailing noises. He didn't wait to see the effect that this would have on the creatures. Turning to Rose, trying to keep that familiar, wild excitement out of his eyes, he said, "Run!" Her eyes narrowed, then shot open very wide, and then they were off, ducking through the crowd at breakneck speed.

"Oi!" he heard Mickey call behind them, "Wait for me!"

"Perfect," he muttered under his breath, "Nothing changes."


	3. Chapter 3: Domestics

Chapter 3: Domestics

* * *

The next few minutes were a blur of ducking through doorways, shoving through crowds, and sonic-ing open locks. He would have expected (_would _ have being the correct term, as he didn't really have time to consider it one way or the other just then) to be concentrating on holding onto Rose's hand in addition to all of those things, but she had a death grip on his fingers.

He didn't even notice _that_ until they came to a stop in some forgotten little corner of town, his breath coming in dry, desperate gasps. "That was," he panted, glancing around at his surroundings with bright but somehow absent eyes, "Probably the farthest I've ever run. No… That's not strictly accurate, but it is the farthest I've ever run with things in their current…" _Er…_ "Configuration." He'd probably run _faster _in the Bizantium, but it had been a relatively short distance, and there had been bits in between where he'd been able to rest a bit, so… It was at this point that he realized his fingers were numb, and he glanced over at the girl beside him.

She was wild eyed and breathing at least as hard as he was, her cheeks brilliantly pink. More importantly, she was holding onto his hand with white-knuckled fingers. "… Rose," he began, shaking his captured hand—and therefore hers—ineffectually, "Could I just…" He tried to pry off a few of her fingers. "Have That…" He finally got one of them off- "Back?" He prized off two more, enough that he could break her grip, and immediately pulled his hand out of her reach. She immediately stuffed her hands into the pockets of her jacket and bit her lip.

"Right," he said, turning back to look at their surroundings again. They'd ended up in some sort of… Back alley? It had probably been a real street—and part of the market-once, but the center of town had moved years back, from the looks of things. "The likelihood of essentially blind creatures finding us here is pretty slim…" He trailed off, peeking around a corner. "Which…" Nothing. He breathed a silent sigh of relief and straightened. "Is good. Definitely good. _Now_ all we need to do is go back into the area that we just escaped and find… three hidden people…" Which he had no idea how to do.

He turned back to face Rose, but frowned down at the ground instead of actually looking her in the face. "First thing's first, though… Why would they attack us? Aaunvithi are _lovely_ people- more importantly, how can they be here? They can't have got here on there own," he added slowly, crossing his arms over his chest. It just didn't…

"… Who are you?"

He finally glanced up at her, feeling—and probably looking—like a vague old man interrupted in the middle of telling a story. "… What?"

Rose had a look about her, one that he couldn't quite place. She was sort of… holding herself away from him, like he was a strange, dangerous-looking dog. "I want t' know who you are!"

"We've been introduced. I'm Rory, remember? Rory who's on holiday?" He hadn't even known he was going to lie until it came out.

She stared at him, and then slowly shook her head. "No. No y' not." It sounded like an accusation—one that she wanted him to deny.

He was silent for a long, long moment. "No, I'm not."

Rose blanched and turned away from him very quickly, bringing her hands up to her face. "Oh, God," she mumbled, and suddenly he remembered where he'd seen her look like this before: once on Platform 1, and once right after he'd regenerated.

He took a small, useless step towards her, then realized that he didn't really want to get any closer and stopped abruptly. "Look, I—"

"Don'," she interrupted harshly.

"It's just that—"

"I said don'!" He shut up.

She was quiet for long time—so long that he actually went back to pacing. Finally, he spoke up, a little sharply. "Alright, not that this isn't important, or valid, or—" He gestured helplessly. "But I'm trying to make sure that everyone on this planet doesn't get killed by aliens with bits of wood—aliens who are, by the way, behaving in a way that is _ridiculously_ out of character. It would be really helpful if you could just—"

Without turning around, she cut in. "Why are you wearin' a bowtie?"

He felt the blood rush into his cheeks, and he self-consciously reached up to adjust it. "It's cool," he said quickly, "Bowties are cool." There was another length of very uncomfortable silence, which, once again, he was the one to break. "So if we could just wait until—"

She spun to face him, and he automatically turned his eyes down to study the dirt instead of looking at her. "So, you're the one after my Doctor, then?"

_Deep breaths._ "Yes," he said, struggling to keep his voice even and still not looking up.

"… Where am I?"

He flinched. He couldn't help it; it was just an automatic—"Obviously not with me," he replied sharply, "Now, Rose Marion Tyler, for once in your life, _leave the domestics outside!_ Please and thank you. Now, we're going to have to— Hang on…" He frowned, took out his sonic screwdriver, and started waving it over his head while it hummed shrilly. No, no control matrix that it was picking up—

Rose was right next to him.

He felt himself go involuntarily tense, wondering how she could have gotten so close to him so quickly—and without him noticing!—and then she was spinning him around to face her. Once again, his eyes shied away from hers. "You're not him," she all but spat.

That surprised him, and his eyes flicked up briefly out of sheer shock. "… _What?_ "

"You won' even look at me! You left him all alone in a pile of… _bananas,_ and now you won't even look… " She was glowering up at him with all the fierceness of a mother lion, and for a second he thought he saw gold light gleaming in the center of her pupils. His eyes jerked away from hers again. "Tha's not him, so you're not him. So… what 'ave you done with him? You're in on this; I know you are. Where's the Doctor?"

"Oh, don't be stupid," he told her, though without any real heat.

"Tell me where he is!" she shouted, getting practically right up into his face. If it hadn't been for their height difference, they would have been nose to nose.

"You're happy with _your_ Doctor," he snapped back, "I've got it. I'm trying to get you back to him as quickly and _painlessly_ as possible. You don't handle regenerations well, and I'm sorry—"

"I JUST got used to the NEW ONE!" she screeched, "And now you—and you won' tell me where I am? Do I die? Is that it? I can't DO this! It isn' fair!"

And suddenly he was right in her face, his hand over her mouth, bending down so that his face was right in front of hers... and he was peering right into her eyes. They were more green than blue this close up. "No," he informed her in a too quiet, too intense voice, "I'll tell you what isn't fair. Loving someone so much that you are fundamentally _less_ without them isn't fair. It isn't right. It doesn't lead to good places, and it doesn't make for decent men. It makes for broken, desperate, unspeakably lonely men who are so sad that they literally don't know what to do with themselves. That, in turn, leads to stupid decisions, which lead to people dying. Innocent people. People who could have—should have- lived. And meanwhile, the princess is safe and sound in another castle, living out her fairytale with somebody else." Her eyes had been widened steadily, and were now practically as wide as saucers. "But what can you do but wish her every possible happiness? …After all, you love her." He took his had away from her mouth. "_That,_" he added, letting the word sink in, "is unfair. " Stunned pause. "… I would imagine," he qualified, making an abrupt return to his usual light, somewhat vague tone of voice. Rose blinked, but he was already straightening and moving away.

"… Wh… Where are we—"

"We're running," he said, tone steady, even… chipper.

"From who?"

"From them." He pointed without looking, knowing exactly where they would be coming from—if they were coming. Rose's gasp was all the confirmation he needed, and he called back, "Come on!"

"How did they find us?" she asked breathlessly a few seconds later as she caught up with him. A split second after that, she captured his hand in hers, the motion a completely automatic one.

He resisted the urge to jerk away from her, and replied lightly as they started sprinting again. "I'd guess that they probably heard the shouting." He just hoped that Amy and Rory were doing better than they were… But why did he have the feeling that he was _forgetting_ something?

* * *

_AN: Can anybody guess what he's forgetting? ;)_

_Alright, I normally don't do Author's Notes, but I felt like I owed you all an apology and an explanation. As I'm sure most of you are aware, this update took a while. A long while, actually. Considering the interest that everyone has shown, I feel pretty terrible about it. It isn't as though I have a real reason, either; I had/have a job (two separate ones), but they weren't time consuming enough that being over-worked is a legitimate excuse. The truth is that I just didn't feel like working on it. I everything-up to and including dialogue- worked out in my head, and I just didn't feel like writing it down. That happens to me a lot, actually. I'd like to say that it'll never happen again, but the truth is that it probably will. I do like this story, though; updates WILL happen, I just can't say **when **they'll happen. _

_Anyway, thank you for sticking with me, thank you for your comments, and stay tuned! Next update is Amy, Rory, and 10._


	4. Chapter 4: Complication

Chapter 4: Complication

* * *

Amy thought her lungs were on fire, which really made pulling air into them at the rate that she currently was a pretty stupid thing to do. She tried to keep her breathing fairly quiet, at any rate, and pressed herself against the smooth, stone-like surface of one of the shops. Her eyes were very wide, her face was very white, and she pressed her normally full, pretty, kiss-o-gram worthy mouth into a tight, serious little line as she stood there, as though letting it relax would allow her self-control break down completely. She didn't like this. Not one bit.

"Amy…" Rory's strained whisper sounded stiflingly close, and she waved a hand at him without turning to look. She was _trying_ to _listen!_ The least he could do was back the hell up and let her do her thing! "Amy!" he said again, more urgently.

"Rory, shut up!" she hissed. Her fingers curled cautiously around the corner of the building, and, when that garnered no reaction, she carefully peeked out, displaying the top left part of her very ginger head and her left eye to the street at large.

Nobody noticed. The streets had dissolved into panic, with humans and all the aliens that _weren't_ green and spiky running around in that mindless, 'everyone for themselves' sort of way that people tended to fall back on whenever they got scared enough. Stalls had been knocked over, some sort of a siren still wailed distantly, and something or other had started leaking a thick, choking grey smoke, which was quickly filling the street. Amy ran her hand uselessly under her eye as it started tearing up in protest and frowned, looking closer.

The funny thing was… none of the green aliens were bothering with any of them. Any of the other people, that was. The streets were clearing rapidly, but there were still a few cowering, coughing people stumbling around, trying to get out of the way; if the attacking force had so desired, it could have taken them out easily. However, they passed right by, paying about as much attention to the frightened shoppers as they would a scattered line of ants.

Instead, they swept the street in a careful, systematic way that somehow put Amy in mind of military documentary programmes. There wasn't any talking, or signs that they were communicating amongst themselves in a way that _didn't_ involve talking; there weren't any pauses. It was all too coordinated. They were… almost like _robots,_ or something. It was eerie. They were looking for something specific, too, and she thought she knew what… or rather, _who._

"Amy!" Rory's voice had gained an edge of clear desperation, and she looked back automatically. He was sagging under the dead-weight of the unconscious man draped over his back, and his face was lined with the strain of remaining upright. She could see his arms shaking. "I can't do this for much longer; he is _much_ heavier than he looks."

One of Amy's eyebrows quirked. "Maybe you should work out more." He blinked, but before he could voice his objections to that little suggestion, she continued, completely serious once again. "We _can't_ stay here; I'm waiting for a chance to get over to behind the next set of buildings."

"Alright…" Rory said, shifting uncomfortably in place. His voice lacked comprehension, and his face showed both quiet frustration and impatience. "So what's the hold up?"

"They're good," Amy growled shortly, turning back to watch the street. "Really good." A little _too_ good for people armed with bits of pipe and beams of wood. And… hold on… where the hell were the police?

"Fantastic," Rory muttered sarcastically, "Bloody brilliant. Vampire Fish weren't enough."

Amy turned to glare at him with tiger-like hazel eyes. "SHH!"

He shhh'ed.

About a minute or so after that, Amy thought she saw a window, which was good; the searchers were getting entirely too close to their little alleyway. She touched Rory's arm, getting his attention, and then gestured across the street. He, needless to say, did not need telling twice, and they slipped across the smoky street with surprising silence and speed. Well, _Amy_ slipped; Rory's movements lacked the necessary grace for that adjective. Surprisingly strong affection made her chest feel tight for a moment as she—having reached the other side- turned back to make sure he was getting across all right and noticed his clumsy progress, but she hurriedly kicked the emotion aside and shot him an impatient look. The next moment, all three of them had slipped back into the shadows on the other side of the street.

It only took them a few minutes more to find an unlocked, rather shabby little flower shop and get themselves and their unconscious charge inside. Amy, fascinated despite the serious nature of their predicament, looked around the shop, noting the various, seemingly exotic flowers that appeared to be priced like common daisies. Bright pink little clusters of bells with inky black centers actually rang softly when she brushed them with a careful finger, and a prickly, almost icy-looking blue flower glowed with a delicate, silvery light in the relative gloom of the shop.

"I hope he doesn't have a concussion," came Rory's quiet voice, filled with subtle tension and not-so subtle concern. Amy, her trance broken, turned around to look as her boyfriend carefully lowered the stranger to the floor and propped up his head with a conveniently placed florist's apron that someone had apparently abandoned on the counter. "That we don't need."

Amy lowered herself gingerly to her knees, her eyes on the unconscious man's sharp, almost delicate features, currently completely relaxed in the way that only the really deeply asleep ever could be. It was funny; she hadn't thought much of him before, but like this he was really quite…

She cleared her throat. "So… how do you tell?" she asked quickly. There wasn't an immediate answer, so she looked up at Rory, her eyebrows going up and her expression innocent. He looked suspicious, and not a little annoyed. She blinked at him, long eyelashes fluttering perhaps a shade more than they absolutely had to. "If he has a concussion?" she clarified.

"Amy…" he began flatly.

Her expression grew more—and at the same time less—innocent. "What? I'm just asking."

He pursed his lips, looking unconvinced, then looked back down at his patient, simultaneously reaching back to pull something out of his pocket. "He'll probably have blood or fluid in his ears if he's got one," he said finally, his free hand carefully taking hold of the man's chin to turn his head carefully from side to side, checking said ears. "Looks…" he said slowly, "Alright there." Bringing up the pen light he'd pulled out of his pocket, he peeled up the left eyelid and shone the bright little point of yellow-white into his eye. Then he frowned, closed the eye, and tried the other one. "That's odd…" he said slowly.

"What is?" Amy asked, a little too quickly. She didn't know this person, after all. Even if he was… which she wasn't sure she believed. At all. The Doctor lied constantly; how was she supposed to believe him this time?

Rory, who had been shining the light into the right eye, let it close as well, his uncertain frown deepening as he clicked the little light off. "Well… his pupils aren't dilating…"

"And that's… weird?" Amy asked uncertainly.

"Yeah," Rory informed her, rolling back onto his heels before rising to his feet. His eyes stayed on the still, lean figure the whole time. "It means that his eyes aren't working. I mean… at all. Blind eyes don't react to light, and neither do dead eyes."

Amy looked down at the man beside her and carefully reached out a finger to brush the light laugh lines in the corner of his eye. _Dead eyes…?_ "Maybe getting hit in the head knocked something loose. Or maybe… whatever he is… maybe their eyes react differently to light," she suggested, then paused for a moment, then continued more loudly, her tone a little challenging. "He's older than the Doctor."

She could feel Rory's eyes on her. "Yeah, he is." Pause. "… So?"

She looked up at him with a glare that was more frustrated than it was angry. "So he's supposed to be the Doctor's younger self! That's what he said, yeah? _That_ doesn't make very much sense!" Rory opened his mouth to respond, but she pressed on before he could get so much as a syllable out. "Why didn't he tell me about this sooner?"

"Well…" Rory began, his tone guarded.

"He lies," she interrupted flatly, harshly. Her eyes shifted back to the oddly fascinating features of the sleeping man, and she felt her mouth pressing into that tight little line again. "All the time. How am I supposed to _trust_ him if he lies?"

"You can trust me," Rory said quietly, a subtle but desperately hopeful note in his voice, but he might as well have been talking to a wall; she only registered that he'd spoken in the most technical sense. Her eyes felt strangely hot, but _not_ with tears, because she'd already spent over a decade crying, and…

The man sat up.

Amy let out a little gasp of surprise and fell sideways off of her knees at the abrupt movement; by the time she'd gotten upright again, _he'd_ gotten a lanky leg under himself, and was getting to his feet. "Oh," she said, a still little breathless with shock. Then, "Great, thanks. I almost had a heart attack!"

"Amy…" Rory said carefully.

She ignored him, dragging herself back into a standing position as well and practically bristling with indignation. "So," she began, "You're supposed to be the Doctor, yeah?" She knew that she was being rude, but she'd just noticed that his suit was… the same. It was the Raggedy Doctor's suit, minus the raggedy part. She thought that even the tie was the same. "Where's your TARDIS, then?" she snapped, "Let's see it!"

"Amy!" This time, she noticed the odd tone, and turned to look at him. His eyes were fixed on the man standing in front of them, and the look on his face matched the sound of his voice. For some reason he had turned his little light on again, and was pointing it directly at them.

"What?" she asked. Her body was already reacting, though, the beat of her heart speeding up even as her stomach started performing flip after sickening flip.

"His pupils still aren't dilating," Rory said quietly. It was only at this point that she realized he wasn't pointing the light at them; he was pointing the light at _him_.

Very, very slowly, Amy turned her head to look up at the man beside her. He was still tall, still rather intriguingly good-looking, and his face still had that relaxed look about it that had made her notice that he was good-looking in the first place. But in the bright, white light, his pupils were eerily huge; in fact, from Amy's angle it looked as though everything but the whites of his eyes had been swallowed up by them. _Dead eyes_… Her own eyes felt like they were bugging out of her head.

And then those eyes flicked down to peer directly at her.

Before she could react, a vice-like hand clamped around her wrist. The next thing she knew, she was being yanked back through the doors of the flower shop behind Rory, who was sprinting like the devil himself was on their heals. From behind her, she heard a crash, and turned to see… _The Doctor?_ …holding what looked like the top of a broken vase and coming after them with a slow, measured stride.

Turning back to face forward, she shouted, "But our Doctor told us to look after him! And not to come out once we'd found a hiding p—"

"I'm not," Rory grated out, "Leaving you in there with… _that._ I'm not."

They ran off into the smoke filled night, the occasional scream or crash still sounding around them, and Amy almost choked on the overwhelming feeling that something very, very, VERY wrong had just happened… and the fact she hadn't been able to do anything about it.

* * *

_AN: Here it is, my lovelies! See, updates **do** come to those who wait! Next up, we find our lost boy... _


	5. Chapter 5: Lost and Found

Chapter 5: Lost and Found

* * *

Mickey Smith was officially too angry to think straight. He'd been building up to it for a long, long while, resentment and jealously threatening to cut of his air supply every time he saw his Rose—HIS—with …. him. He hadn't even been happy back when the Doctor had looked like some dour, bony, half-dead vulture, complete with huge ears and a beaky nose. Even then, there had been something in the way he'd looked at her when she wasn't paying attention, something in the warmth of her smile when she'd absently caught his skinny wrist and dragged him back into that stupid box… It had just been the two of them. Ever since that night with those mad plastic… things… It had been the two of them, running around the universe, laughing at their private jokes, and occasionally popping home to visit Jackie… and, if he happened to be around, and it was convenient, Mickey. Mickity-Mick-Mickey.

… Mickey the idiot.

But that had been all well and good. …Sort of. The jealousy had been controllable for the most part, because even though she had clearly loved the Doctor more, Mickey had been able to talk himself into believing that she didn't _love_ him. The Doctor was her best mate, and if it came down to it, she would always choose his company, would always be by his side when he needed her. And that was alright, Mickey told himself, that was fine; he could be the boyfriend instead of her friend. He would take what he could get.

And then Christmas had rolled around, and the Doctor had stumbled out of the TARDIS looking like… Well, not looking like a half-dead vulture anymore. Suddenly, it wasn't alright. It wasn't even SORT of alright, because now he could interpret the looks between them for what they were. Rose loved the Doctor in EVERY way, and he'd let stupid things like a big nose and too much leather blind him to that fact. Now the Doctor was handsome and charming and energetic, with a catching grin, trainers, and the frustrating tendency to talk even faster than the first version had. He'd made Rose blush furiously within seconds of regaining consciousness aboard a hostile mothership (in his pajamas, even!), and had later captured her hand while they were standing out in the snow…. Ash. Whatever. They had stared up at the stars, speaking quietly to one another and holding hands as Mickey pretended to be paying attention to something else.

And that was the problem: he was more open. Mickey had always hoped, in some dark corner of his mind, that even if Rose loved the Doctor, the Doctor would be entirely too wrapped up in his projects and his traveling to even notice, much less start loving her back. But there was no way to mistake the way that he looked at her, even if he wasn't aware of it himself. Mickey thought that he probably wasn't—not really. Not yet. For whatever that was worth.

But it didn't matter. They ran off, traveling, and Mickey was left behind again, until they needed backup while visiting home. Left in the dust. The tin dog of their little group, destined to be stuck in the back of somebody's car until his batteries ran out. And now he couldn't even pretend.

He had been hopeful on that ship—the one with the windows to18th century France. The Doctor had been off on his own for the most part, and it had been just him and Rose. They had run around the ship, scaring themselves silly, almost getting cut up for spare parts, and spraying clockwork androids with fire extinguishers. The Doctor had been completely focused on the mistress of a French king, and Rose had been left in the dust beside Mickey for once. It had been exhilarating, more fun than Mickey would have thought possible.

It had also seemed like she was finally getting a taste of her own medicine, and even as he enjoyed the increase in attention, Mickey had expected her to grow sullen and jealous in the same way that he always seemed to. Her Doctor was clearly smitten with … Renette?... and the vindictive satisfaction that resulted from the thought had frightened him a little. Now she'd see. Now she'd understand, and he, Mickey, would be there for her while the Doctor was off doing… whatever.

But Rose had remained completely cheerful, obviously giving the Time Lord his space while he was focused on Renette, but still ready to help him when he inevitably needed an extra pair of hands. She really, really loved him, and the purity of it made Mickey feel sick. Nobody was like that. Nobody was that selfless. What kind of girl didn't care that her man of choice hadn't even wrapped his head around his own feelings, yet? That he wouldn't snog her, or touch her in 'that' way at all, at least not until he got his morals and conflicting emotions and pride into line with the idea, and who knew how long that would take… if it happened at all?

And here Mickey was, sitting in the dirt behind what looked and smelled suspiciously like some sort of… space dumpster, hiding from a bunch of aliens who had whacked the Doctor over the head with a long metal bar. Rose had run off with that Rory bloke, disappeared into the panicked crowd within seconds, and he was left completely and utterly alone. Again. Forgotten. Surprisingly, he realized that he wasn't angry, after all; he just felt very, very tired- not to mention completely _sick_ of pretending like being a part of their little 'team' was all he wanted out of life. "Well," he said quietly, sounding surly even to himself, "At least there's a bright side to not being important."

Ironically, at that exact moment someone grabbed a hold of his shoulders, their hands huge and strong and rough. Mickey spun around and scrambled backward, crablike, before they could really get a grip on him, letting out a small, high-pitched little yelp that would have made him absolutely livid with defensive, ashamed rage under less frightening circumstances, but another pair of hands snatched at him before he could start to calm down enough to think that rationally.

It was at this point that he saw his first attacker's face… or lack there of. It was one of those dammed… spiky… _things_. "Oh my God," he muttered, scrambling to his feet. He didn't want this. Whatever this was, he didn't want it. Why were they after _him?_ "I'm not," he said breathlessly, taking a hurried step backward, "I'm not important. Tha's the Doctor. You want the Doctor. I'm nobody." In some distant corner of his mind, Mickey remembered that they couldn't actually hear him; he was chattering at creatures that were literally as deaf as rocks. It wasn't a logical thing, though. "Really, I'm—"

Another pair of hands shot out of the darkness of the alley, grabbing onto his upper arm, followed by another, more delicate pair that clamped around his other wrist. He struggled, elbowing the smaller of his two attackers in the stomach with his elbow, and it (she?) let go, but the next moment two more pairs of hands were digging into that arm, and they started leading him out into the open in complete, eerie silence. Mickey tried his best to break it, struggling and cursing as his heart raced in his chest.

The streets were clear of people, now, with scattered fires, destroyed shops, and lots of thick, oily black smoke making the once-bright area look like a war zone. Mickey stumbled along, trying to keep his feet underneath him and his wits about him. "I can't believe it," he muttered to himself, his voice gaining a high, almost hysterical edge, "I've been captured by walking pin-cushions!"

"Now, that's not very nice," a light, almost pleasant voice said reprovingly. Mickey jerked his head to the left and up, searching out the source of the voice. It was easy enough to find, and the next moment the Anthuva…. The anvanth… The _spiky people_ brought him to a firm stop, their fingers still digging painfully into his flesh. "Not very accurate, either, but never mind that. Hullo!" The man said evenly, smiling a very little bit. It was not a pleasant expression, and Mickey swallowed. "Oh, don't make that face," he continued, rolling his eyes, "Although, if you want to scream like a little girl, I won't stop you." Other than that shark-like smile, he was thoroughly ordinary looking. …No… Actually… there was something wrong with his eyes, as well.

Mickey lifted his chin, glowered, and snorted. He was terrified, sure, but he'd be damned if he let this arse see that. "Who the hell are you supposed to be?" he growled.

The man smiled again, wider this time. "Why, Mr. Smith," he replied smoothly. Mickey was remained of snakes and centipedes and spiders skittering around in dark, hidden cracks and crevices. "That is an excellent question. Let's talk."

* * *

_AN: Yes, this was short, and something of a teaser. I am very aware. Next chapter, though... ;)_


	6. Chapter 6: Rejoining

Chapter 6: Rejoining

* * *

"Somethin' happened to me," Rose murmured, breaking the silence. The 'incredibly necessary for their continued survival silence.' "Didn' it?" Despite the question, the ash soft tone of her voice made it sound as though she was talking to herself.

The Doctor waited a beat, fiddling with the settings on his screwdriver. It just didn't make any sense; he _had_ to be missing something. Plus, there was a feeling… something hard to describe. It was like… someone holding their breath to avoid laughing, and as much as he wanted to think he was being paranoid, it didn't feel like the held-back laughter was of a particularly nice variety. He tried not to picture a certain blond man in black casual-wear practically howling with laughter on top of a pile of trash (drumsthedrumsthedrums), failed miserably, and dragged himself back to the present with an unpleasant jerk. There was no reason to think that things were as bad as all that. "… Sort of. It's not really that simple," he replied absently, his eyes still firmly glued to his stubbornly unhelpful sonic screwdriver.

He could feel her glance at him. "Those things," she said carefully, "They're not very bright, are they?"

His eyebrows went up a little, though he continued to fiddle. "What makes you say that?"

"It's jus'… When we were runnin' away from 'em, as soon as we were around the corner, they lost us righ' away." She leaned back against a very ordinary-looking wooden post, though there was a slight bluish tinge to the material.

"That would probably be because they stopped to search every possible hiding spot in a grid pattern."

"How do you know that they did that?" Her tone was skeptical, and he automatically pictured the look that was probably on her face.

"They're being controlled, and not individually," The Doctor replied absently, "There are _way_ too many of them for that. Think of it as programming for a system of computers; they all have protocols that they follow when they're not being actively directed by someone." He frowned at his screwdriver, turned it on for a moment, and then flipped it off again. "Now if I could just figure out _how_…"

"Are you angry with me?"

_Blink. _The Doctor turned to look at her so quickly that something in his neck actually popped. "Ow!" he hissed. "What? …No! Why would I be angry with _you?_" Rose was still leaning against the pole, but she had curled in on herself, her arms crossed protectively over her stomach. _Wait… _"This is… about what I said before." Rose's shoulders hunched a little more, which was confirmation enough. "Ah." He was not good at this. He had never been good at this. Well… Maybe his seventh self had been a little better than most, and eight had been a little too good, but… "That's not…" Pause. This was really difficult, and the difficulty was not helped in ANY way by his certainty that the whole situation was utterly ridiculous. "I'm … annoyed in your general direction," he said finally, carefully. "Not angry. And not really… at you. Exactly. Anyway, why does it matter?"

"You sounded angry." There was a challenge in her voice now, though she was taking pains to remain quiet this time around.

"I'm not."

"And why won't you look at me for longer than a few seconds?"

"Do we _really_ have to do this _now?_"

"… Are you happy?" _What? _His hands stopped fiddling with the screwdriver automatically. "I know I'm gone, and that's… that's fine. It was always goin' to happen, because I age, and you…" She paused. "But… you don't even seem to miss me, and—"

Right then, to the Doctor's surprised, profound, and somewhat guilty relief, Amy Pond sprinted around the corner and collided sharply with Rose. Both girls let out little shrieks of surprise, and Rose lost her balance, toppling to the ground with another sound of stunned pain. Amy remained standing, but only by grabbing onto the slightly blue pole. The Doctor regarded them with something between amusement and exasperation as he slipped his screwdriver back into his pocket, then moved to help Rose up. "Hullo, Pond," he said dryly.

Amy waved, sagging against the pole, apparently too out of breath to manage actual words. The next moment, Rory barreled around the corner as well. "Doctor," he gasped, "We need to g—"

"Rory," the Doctor interrupted firmly, "I think I remember telling you to do something. This—" He made a vague gesture at the two of them. "Was not part of it. Also, you seem to be missing someone," he added, small frown lines appearing on his brow as he realized that his younger self was nowhere to be seen.

"Not… for long," Amy wheezed.

The Doctor brightened. "Oh good! He woke up?"

Rory shot Amy a sidelong glance. "… Sort of. We have to go," he insisted, his breath still coming fast.

The Doctor raised his eyebrows. "_Before_ I catch up to you." They both nodded. "Okay… _Why?_"

"Because he's like them!" Amy all but snarled. She looked impatient and exhausted to the extreme. "The green spiky aliens! He went all… Dawn of the Dead and started trying to kill us!"

"With a broken vase!" Rory put in. Amy gave her patented 'shut up Rory' look, and he did.

The Doctor's eyebrows felt as though they were in danger of disappearing into his hairline. "… So what you're telling me is that my younger self turned into a zombie and started trying to kill you with a broken vase." It wasn't really a question. Amy gave him a dangerous look, which he ignored. "Um…. No."

"No?" Rory sounded as though something was putting pressure on his voice box.

"What do you mean, no?" Amy really did snarl that time.

"Doctor…." Rose began, sounding uncertain and worried.

"I mean that's impossible," he informed them firmly. With that, he started down the way Amy and Rory had come. He was going to figure this out. "Just because something can take over the mind of an Aaunvithi—"

"You pompous…" Amy hissed, and then stalked after him. "I've seen vampire fish, and a star whale, and … I've seen creatures that freeze into stone when they're being looked at. Remember? The Weeping Angels? One of them got inside my head and almost killed me." She planted herself in front of him and raised her chin in challenge. "You're telling me that in the whole universe, nothing has ever been able to get inside _your_ head?

_Er… _His mind flashed back over Cassandra, the living sun, and… whatever had been on Midnight. And those were just the recent examples. He shook his head. "Of course not, but—"

"Doctor, do you trust me?" He gave her a somewhat flat look. "Stop that," she snapped. "_Do you trust me?_"

"… Yes." Pause. "Obviously."

"I'm telling you that something is very wrong with the person chasing us."

"It can't be what you think it is, Amy. Things have gotten into my head before, and granted, that particular version of me was pretty bad about leaving his… mental _doors_ unlocked, but this isn't that _kind_ of control. It's like… a web. A network. Think of the Aaunvanthi as complicated calculators and him as a government issue super-computer. Something made to manipulate calculators couldn't handle something like that. He's—"

Right then, the topic of their conversation came into view through the choking smoke and gathering dusk, walking down the small street. His long legged stride was unhurried, and in his right hand he was holding something. A broken… bottle, maybe? … Or a vase. The next moment, the Doctor got a look at his face.

Amy gave him a wry look. "You were saying?"

The Doctor swallowed. He really had to stop using the word 'impossible'. It was like 'nothing can possibly go wrong' and 'now we're safe' all rolled into one ugly ball of really, _really_ bad karma. "… I suppose… run," he mumbled, still looking mildly stunned. How was that possible? How? None of this made sense!

"Doctor…?" That snapped him out of it. Rose was staring down the street at the approaching man, her expression anxious and… something else. Seeing her look like that made something in his chest go tight. "Doctor?"

"Rose!" He caught her wrist right as she started toward the approaching figure, and she came up short with a jerk. "Not now."

"But he's—" she started.

"Not now!" he interrupted sharply, and started pulling her in the opposite direction.

"I'm not leavin' him!" she said, leaning her weight back and digging in her heals in an effort to avoid being dragged.

"We're not," he informed her, "Believe it or not, I do have something of a personal interest in his continued health and well-being. We'll get him back." She glared, but when he tugged at her wrist again, she moved willingly, if not exactly happily.

And so they started off down the little street, moving just fast enough to keep ahead of his younger self, while still moving slowly enough to keep him in sight. "This is ridiculous," Amy muttered, "What if we run into something else?"

"Right, yeah, thanks; do you have anything helpful to say?" Amy opened her mouth, but the Doctor continued without waiting. "Didn't think so. There is something I'm missing, and it is driving me…" His eyes widened, and he snapped his fingers. "Wait, wait, wait…" He paused for a moment, working it all out. "Rory, when I asked if he had woken up, you said 'sort of'. Why did you say that?"

Rory's expression was deeply uncertain. "Because… his eyes weren't reacting to light…?"

"That's it!" The Doctor beamed. "The end result of the first network was him getting knocked over the head… He was confused at the time… And he can follow us directly…"

"Instead of using that grid pattern to search?" Rose asked blankly.

He pointed at her. "Exactly! Ten points for Rose."

"I have no idea what you're saying right now," Rory said in a tone of forced calm and cheer.

"I'm saying that I'm going to go and do my best alarm clock impression!" Everyone just stared at him blankly, but he didn't wait for any further reactions. Without further ado, he turned and walked straight up to his younger self.

That weirdly familiar face, the one he still looked for in the mirror, stared back at him. No, not back at him—through him. Those dilated pupils gave his face a very far away look; as the saying went, the lights were on, but no one was home. "Hello," he began politely. His younger self came to a rather abrupt stop, and even though his eyes stayed distant, the Doctor had a sudden, unnerving impression that he was being observed. "Whoever you are, and I know you're listening, you have officially gotten my attention. Congratulations." He smiled sunnily. "Let's see what you do with it." Quite abruptly, his younger self's fist (the one not holding the bottle) snapped out, heading for the side of his head. The Doctor just ducked, clucked disapprovingly under his breath, and said, "That was incredibly predictable, you… silly person. I'll be in touch. And you," he added, glaring into his younger self's eyes, "_WAKE UP!_"

With the last two words, he brought his head forward with alarming force and cracked it against the other, taller man's forehead. That Doctor reeled back, his eyes coming into focus with almost coming suddenness, wobbled for a second, and fell back into a sitting position, completely stunned. "…Wh… What?"

The Doctor walked back over to the other three, rubbing at his forehead. "Alright, first thing's first…" He blinked. "Where's Mickey?"

"What?" That was still from Doctor number Ten. "No, really… I … What? …Rose?"

"What did you just do?" Amy asked as Rose hurried over to her Doctor's side, looking about as lost as Ten sounded.

"I flipped a switch. Basically, whoever is behind this took advantage of a loophole. Remember how I said that this particular version of me is bad about leaving doors open?" Amy nodded. "Well, whoever is behind this made a point of having him get knocked over the head while he was confused. Confused and reaching out telepathically."

She looked at him sharply. "You can do that?"

He shrugged. "_I_ usually don't. I wouldn't be surprised if his searching was how they sensed him in the first place. Anyway, they knocked him out while he was open in a very fundamental way. After that, it was just a matter of getting in with a separate, more complex… _system_, I suppose, shutting down all his sensory perception to keep him asleep. I just bypassed that and woke him up."

"But…" Rory frowned thoughtfully, but his eyes were on Rose and the other Doctor. The girl had knelt down on the street beside him, and he was talking to her while rubbing absently at his forehead. "Why didn't they sense you in the same way, then?"

"Because I wasn't curious. In fact, I was trying to hide. From him," he added, pointing at his dazed counterpart.

Amy made an impatient sound. "Alright… so… who is it?"

The Doctor looked at her inquiringly. "Sorry?"

"Who is it? The Daleks? Who? And how does this 'system' work?"

"Ah. … I actually have no idea. Yet." He let out a slow breath. "So… that's next on the agenda. They were ready for… us. Time Lords. That isn't normal…"

"What isn't normal?" asked a politely interested voice. It took every inch of willpower the Doctor possessed not to flinch, and he turned around slowly, his expression carefully blank. The Tenth Doctor stood there, Rose at his side, his expression just as neutral as his older counterpart's.

"…What just happened," The Doctor replied blandly. "Bit odd. You were… a Zombie… person. Odd, that." He glanced at Amy. _HELP._ "Yeah…"

The other Doctor's eyebrows went up a little, and it looked very much as though he was trying not to smile. The Doctor resisted the urge to glower. "Oh," was all he said, his tone still noncommittal.

"Yeah," the Doctor confirmed.

After a moment of intensely uncomfortably silence, Rose spoke up. "It's alright, Rory," she said significantly, "I told him that you're Time Agents. He's not upset."

The Doctor's eyebrows went up. "Oh." Another pause. "Well. Then. That is something, isn't it?"

"It definitely is," Amy said, her voice just a tad too cheerful.

"There is one little thing I'm fuzzy on," Doctor Number Ten put in politely, his eyes firmly on his older self's face, "Tiny. Sub-microscopic, really. How exactly did you wake me up, Rory?"

"I hit you," The Doctor replied brightly.

"Yeah, I got that bit, thanks," Ten informed him, a little bit more of an edge to his voice. His hand came back up to rub at his forehead.

"Well," The Doctor said, drawing out the word. "That's how I woke you up."

Ten regarded him for a long moment with flat eyes. "… You aren't a time agent." Rose shifted uncomfortably beside him.

"No?"

"No."

"You're right," The Doctor said, then smiled benignly. "I'm your biggest fan. I mean, it's perfectly understandable; you go zooming around space and time, saving planets, fighting monsters, and being… well, pretty sort of marvelous. So, naturally, now and then people notice you!" His smile widened a bit. "That's me! Biggest fan!" He waved. "Hullo!"

His younger self made a face, rolling his eyes. "Oh, come off it! D'you really expect me to believe that? Honestly."

"Okay, why can't I be a Time Agent, again?"

"They're all about blending in, and you do _not_ blend in. I mean, I love the bowtie, but… By the way, why did you let your fiancée wear a dress from the 1920's here?"

"I honestly didn't notice until we left the T—Look, this is fun. It is. But we're going to go. We don't want to get in the way of your…" He gestured vaguely, and then continued as though the gesture had been some sort of proper word. "So. Bye then. It's been… Really… Good." With another little wave, he grabbed Rory and Amy by their upper arms and started pulling them away.

"…Hold on… No... no...Yes! That's it! You're _me!_" The Doctor stopped rather abruptly, turned around, and looked at his younger self, who was beaming like a schoolboy. "I can't believe I didn't put it together before! And that would make you the real Rory," he said, indicating Rory with a pointed finger. "Oh, this is brilliant! Rose is horrible at lying," he explained modestly, "And, let's face it, _nobody _really dresses like that. Actually," he added thoughtfully, "You look a little bit like three, don't you? Blimey, and I thought my dress sense was moving in a positive direction. But never mind that! Look at you! I have to say, I didn't even…"

Amy nudged him with her elbow. "What now?" she whispered as Ten rattled on.

"…I'll let you know as soon as I stop panicking," he told her quietly.


	7. Chapter 7: Problems

Chapter 7: Problems

* * *

"Oh, this really is, this is brilliant! See Rose," The Doctor said, still grinning like a maniac as he nudged the girl next to him with his elbow, "That's me! Future me! It's just like the old days! We used to have team ups with three or four me's at once, sometimes, back then. Only for the really bad, universe-ending stuff, mind you." Suddenly he blinked, his smile fading a little as something occurred to him. "… Which… might or might not make my reaction to all this just the slightest bit inappropriate, come to think of it."

Rose snorted under her breath, her expression one of affectionate exasperation. "D'y' think?"

His grin widened cheekily again, but before he could say anything else, his older self interrupted. "No, no; I'm sure you'll be fine. It's bad, but not _that_ bad; nothing you can't handle on your own. Good luck with it!" With a rather cool smile, he continued to drag his companions off like naughty children who had misbehaved.

The Doctor blinked, opened his mouth, closed it, and shot a look at Rose, who shrugged in a way that said 'he's your problem now' more than it bespoke of any actual confusion. Frowning a little at that, he started after them. "Hold on—"

"We really, really can't stay. We shouldn't have stayed before, but we did because you were _indisposed_. Now you're fine again, so we're going to go before something very important breaks because we're here."

The frown got more pronounced, more out of confusion than any actual anger. "No, but—"

Without slowing his pace, he interrupted _again_. "In order, 11th, none of your business, and I'm taking these two on a date. A series of dates, really. Um… What would you call it, Pond?"

Pretty, ginger Amy raised an eyebrow at him. "Procrastinating?"

"Amy!" Rory protested.

"What? And by the way, what are we doing? Two seconds ago you were—"

The Newer Doctor interrupted her smoothly. "Anyway, we're off. Nice to see you Rose, nice to see me—"

"Will you stop that?" the Doctor snapped, finally fed up. Doctor Eleven finally looked back, his expression one of polite but total disinterest. His features were gaunt, with high cheekbones , a prominent chin, and a lot of ridiculous hair. Well, _something_ had apparently stayed the same, at least, and he was rather fond of the ridiculous hair. All the same, this was… unnerving. "You're an older, more experienced version of me, and I've been unconscious. If you're going to leave (and frankly, unless you parked your TARDIS directly on top of mine, I don't see what the problem is) at least tell me what you've figured out."

Eleven regarded him calmly for a moment or two, reading him (or so it felt) like a book, and not a particularly interesting one at that. "…Fine. I suppose that can't hurt, as long as I make it fast. Okay… Where to start… Right. There's some sort of network that is being used to control the Aaunvanthi. I'm thinking that its something like what was being used to control the human population in that parallel universe, but because the Aaunvanthi are telepathic, the earpods aren't even necessary. Mind you, that's just a theory, and the sonic hasn't been precisely helpful in picking up any sort of control matrix, which could—"

"No, wait, back up," his younger self interrupted, trying to get some sort of a hold on the explanation, Ear pods? "Which parallel universe?"

Eleven immediately brought his hand up to cover his eyes, which didn't do much to hide the fact that he was rolling them in an exasperated sort of way. "That's right. You still had Mickey. That comparison isn't going to work, then; you haven't gone to the parallel universe yet."

"What d'you mean, we still have Mickey?" Rose broke in suddenly, her expression alarmed, "Do we lose him?"

The Doctor in the pinstriped suit opened his mouth to shush her, but the one in the bowtie was already there. "Not now, Rose. Alright, after thinking about it, the comparison actually doesn't matter in the least. Their base has to be around here somewhere, and that's the main point. No, actually no; the _main_ point is that the whole network was set up to get you unconscious so that another, more complicated-but operationally similar-method of control could be used on you. Now, since there haven't been any police around ("I noticed that!" Amy whispered loudly), I would guess that the base of operations is in the precinct itself. It's worth having a look, anyway. That being the intergalactic symbol for police," he added, pointing at a nearby sign, "I would start going in that direction, but remember that what they wanted in the first place was you. You specifically." He paused very briefly. "Don't forget that." He smiled, meeting his younger counterpart's eyes squarely. "Off you go."

The younger counterpart stared back at him with a serious, borderline grim expression. This was… wrong. Something… "What happened to you?" he asked quietly, as gently as he could—as though he was afraid of shattering something with his voice.

Something went tight in the other Doctor's face, though it seemed doubtful that anyone else had noticed it. "That isn't how this works." His reply was firm, but just as quiet.

"No, it isn't," The Doctor agreed at once, his eyes intent and searching, "Or it shouldn't be. The way you're acting… If I didn't know better…" He paused meaningfully. "I'd say that you're more upset by the prospect of talking to me than you are by the rest of this mess." Eleven's eyes narrowed a very little bit, the line of his jaw tightening in something like (but not exactly like) anger, but he didn't respond. "No?" Still no response. "Then stay! Why not?" He raised his eyebrows, lifting his chin a little. "What could it hurt? Hm?"

"You _literally_ have no idea," Eleven replied sharply.

"Then explain it to me."

"Once again, that is not even _close_ to how this works."

"Oh, come on, we're a ways past that, aren't we? The way you're acting, there's no way you would have come to Achilles 7 if you thought that there was even the slightest chance of running into me, which means that you don't remember this, which means that I _won't_ remember this." His eyebrows rose even further, daring his older self to disagree. "You've got some other element to worry about."

"The cracks," a young woman's voice said suddenly. The Doctor turned to glance at Amy Pond, who suddenly looked very tense, with her lips pursed and bloodless and her eyes wide. The other Doctor shot her a glare, and she glared right back at him. "What? He's right!"

"I am?" Pause. "'Course I am. What are the cracks?" They certainly sounded ominous enough.

"If we leave right now, you won't have to find out for another few years," Eleven snapped, glaring at Amy again, "Now, Amy, Rory, we are leaving. Right now."

"But we weren't before!" Amy protested, "You were trying to figure this out right up until he came up and—"

"A few years?" The Doctor (… Ten? He'd never thought of himself that way. He'd never had to. …It… wasn't very pleasant) cut in, somewhat stunned. That didn't sound good. "Blimey… Wait, no... no… Sorry, how many is 'a few', exactly?"

"You're not going to remember even if I tell you!" Eleven replied, exasperated, "There isn't a point to _any_ of this!"

"But… Doctor…" Rory began carefully.

"Okay, wait. Until this gets sorted out, I am Eleven, and this handsome fellow is Ten. I know," he added quickly as his younger self opened his mouth to object, "I don't like it either, but for expediency's sake, please and thank you. Yes, Rory?"

"Well…" Rory continued, "It's just… you said that they were ready for…Time Lords." Amy let out a slightly hysterical giggle, which caused Rose to smirk. "It's entirely possible that the D—Um… Ten… can't handle it on his own at all. They're ready for him, right? That's the problem."

"Good point! Well done, Rory," Ten said brightly. These future companions of his were brilliant. … Maybe that went without saying.

"… Thanks," Rory replied shortly, looking distinctly uncomfortable with the whole thing.

"We. Can't. Stay," Eleven repeated loudly.

"Well, we can't get back to the TARDIS, either," Amy said suddenly, her voice tight.

"Why not?" both Doctors asked simultaneously, Ten's tone one of blank confusion and Eleven's one of extreme frustration.

"Well… I don't know about your TARDIS," she told Ten, "But… Ours was in that little shed, remember?" She pointed, and everyone turned to look down the now deserted street. "It's collapsed."

Eleven stared at the distant, collapsed shed, his face unreadable. "Why am I surprised anymore?" he asked, then shouted, "This always happens; why am I surprised?"

"Doctor!" Amy hissed at him.

"We have to be quiet!" Rose said simultaneously.

Eleven kicked a stray piece of wood, seeming supremely unconcerned by their worry. "No, we don't," he said irritably.

Trying not to smile, Ten quietly asked, "Did you just hurt your foot?"

"Yes," Eleven snapped.

"But—" Rory began

"Hasn't anybody noticed?" Eleven cut in, "We've been standing in the middle of the street for upwards of five minutes, making no special effort to be quiet, and nobody has come to get us."

"Which means," Ten continued slowly, eyes sliding out of focus as he thought, "That they aren't coming at all, which probably means that they're busy with something else." He frowned. "But what? Assuming that this is, in fact, all about me," he added, glancing at Eleven.

"It is," he replied, still sounding more than a little irritable. Apparently, that version of him was _not_ prone to mood swings, for better or for worse.

"Then… where are they?" Rose asked quietly, her eyes flicking nervously over the abandoned street, pausing for a moment on each darkened window.

Eleven ran a hand through his hair in an eerily familiar, frustrated motion, and Ten's own right hand clenched and unclenched unconsciously. "I don't know… Getting ready to ambush us? I can't know everything."

"Do you really think that, though?" Amy asked quickly, her eyes still very wide and her words clipped. Using his powerful deductive skills, Ten decided that was probably her 'on edge' face.

Distracted, Eleven blinked at her. "What?"

"That they're getting ready to ambush us?"

"Oh! No," he said immediately, then added, "Probably not."

The ginger girl looked like she was getting ready to slap him. "Prob—"

"An. Ee. Way. Amy, Rory, did you have Archangel?" Eleven interrupted. It was obvious just by looking at him that he was working on something. Ten raised his eyebrows and exchanged a confused look with Rose. Apparently, Rory and Amy didn't understand either, because they just stared at him blankly. Rory shook his head very slightly. Eleven made a face. "The satellite network. You would have had it on your mobiles a few years back."

"Ooooh," Amy said at once, brightening as well. "It was that carrier, you know," she added to Rory, "All the other companies went through Archangel. That prime minister set it up before he was elected, remember? Right after what's-his-name?" Rory shook his head, still looking blank. "The good-looking one."

"Oh, brilliant," Eleven muttered, sarcasm fairly dripping off of the words.

"Oh, right," Rory said simultaneously, understanding lighting his features, "The barking mad one who shot the president? … Or something? You know, it's funny, but I actually can't remember all that much about—"

"Right, fine, but you remember Archangel, yes?" Eleven broke in impatiently. His two companions nodded at him, though their faces made Ten think that they were still trying to board the logic train. Judging from Rose's face, that made three—Well, if he wanted to be perfectly honest with himself, four. "Ooookay…" It was obvious that he was thinking hard. "You were right, Amy. We are staying here."

"'Ya think?" Amy grumbled.

"Rose, Ten, you can go and check out the police station. Rory, Amy and I will stay out here and look for various possible links or abstract variables that might or might not actually exist."

"… Oh." Ten exchanged another, more significant look with Rose, who was trying hard not to laugh. He'd just come out and… _said_ it. Sure, that was what _he_ did, most of the time, but he'd never just… "… Okay."

"One thing," Eleven said, walking over to the pair of him as he slipped his sonic screwdriver back into his jacket pocket. "The cracks. Specifically cracks in the fabric of space and time."

Ten's eyebrows drew together at once over widening eyes. "… _What?_" What did that mean? What? No, _really_… _**What?**_ "What did you _do?_"

Eleven blinked again. "Wha- Why does everybody always assume that it's my fault? That is _incredibly_ unfair. Anyway, that's not the point," he continued immediately, drawing himself back on subject with some apparent difficulty, "You are not to touch them. You are not to sonic them. Don't even look at them for too long."

"Seriously," Amy said, her voice almost… grim. "Don't."

"But—" Ten began.

"No," Eleven interrupted firmly, "This is non-negotiable. Time is in flux, and I don't want to be erased from existence because my last incarnation is to stupid to listen to me when I'm talking. Don't." Ten opened his mouth. "Don't!" Ten shut his mouth. "Good. Amy, Rory, allons—Um… Yeah. I mean… let's go." Without looking back, he turned and started off down a side street, his companions trailing after him, muttering to each other in low, secretive voices. Something about… angels. "Be careful, you two!" Eleven called back, almost as an afterthought.

Ten was not fooled. At all. He watched them until they disappeared around the back of a shop, his expression pensive. "Doctor?" He looked down to see Rose peering up at him. "What's wrong?"

"With me?" he asked quietly, "Nothing. With him? … I don't know."

"But… he's you."

He drew in a deep breath. "That's the problem," he replied honestly. He didn't like where this was going. Feeling Rose's eyes boring into him, he forced himself back into the moment. "But never mind that," he continued in a more normal tone of voice, "We've got a police station to infiltrate."

"Yeah?" She beamed up at him, the expression transforming her face from pretty to gorgeous in a heartbeat. Speaking of heartbeats… "You and James Bond."

"I just need some theme music," he told her seriously. He caught her hand in his, and they started off towards the supposed enemy base.


	8. Chapter 8: Echoes

Chapter 8: Echoes

* * *

Rory Williams thought of himself as being completely ordinary, and, as he trailed after Amy and the Doctor, that seemed (at least to him) to be the problem. The Doctor was like one of the heroes that you only saw on the telly—brilliant and charismatic and mysterious and adventurous, with an indefinable air of unspoken tragedy about him, all of which served to draw people (and yes, he did include himself in that category) in like moths to a particularly effective bug-zapper. He made sense in a setting like this.

Amy, too, sort of… _fit_ in a fundamental way. Beautiful, creative, brave, mad, impossible Amy Pond -who Rory had somehow gotten to say 'Yes'- made sense in this insane, time traveling world, clicking into place beside the Doctor like the quintessential lovely assistant next to a master magician. Rory, on the other hand, was not the sort of person who got pulled into adventures like this; if anything, he should have gotten killed in the first ten minutes or so of all that nonsense with Prisoner Zero, if only to make Amy more sympathetic to the hypothetical television audience.

But somehow, here he was, on an alien planet sometime after the year 4 billion. 4 billion! He still couldn't help thinking about the whole thing in terms of a science fiction programme. Every time something surprising happened, a dry, rather pointlessly sarcastic part of his mind muttered, 'What a twist!' even as the rest of him grasped desperately at straws. Amy and the Doctor ('her Doctor' some nasty little part of him corrected) would look back at him like some sort of idiot child, 'Keep up, Rory,' written all over their faces, and he'd hold himself back from shouting, 'What the hell am I doing here? This is insane! He was never real! You MADE HIM UP, Amy!'

"... mean it. What's gotten into you? The last time I saw you act like that…" Amy trailed off, quirking a dark eyebrow speculatively at the Doctor, who looked like he was about to have some sort of a fit.

"Never mind the last time I acted like that!" he retorted at once.

Amy continued as though she hadn't heard. "Actually, it was rather recently. Somebody was using your television monitor as a shoe rack, as a recall…" The Doctor actually winced a little at the apparently painful memory, and Rory resisted the urge to ask what they were talking about. 'Long story,' one or both of them would say, their tone of dismissal clear. "You know, for all that he's you, you two don't get along very well."

"Of course we don't get along very well," the Doctor informed her cagily, "have you ever imagined what it would be like to talk to eight-year-old you?"

"It would be a laugh," she replied lightly, "I might even get the chance to tell her to get on with her life instead of waiting around for you."

"And how do you think little Amelia would react to yet another grown-up telling her that?" he shot back.

Amy glared at him, but the next moment her frown had turned thoughtful. "Oh." There was a long pause, and then she continued reluctantly. "I suppose I see what you mean. Sort of." The Doctor somehow looked as though he would have preferred more of a fight, just so that he would have an excuse to be irritable, and Rory had to suppress a smile. Amy looked at him askance, then nudged him with her elbow. "So… about Rose…" she began, expression guileless.

"Amy…" the Doctor said in a tone of forced calm, "Leave it alone." His expression matched his voice, with his jaw clenched a little too tightly, which made Rory wonder. The Doctor, according to all of his experience with the man, was the sort of person who could look danger in the face without blinking. In fact, it was entirely possible that he would do it while cracking jokes. The Atraxi and Prisoner Zero hadn't managed to get panic out of him. The bloody vampire fish had elicited a kind of bizarre glee. This, though, something about this situation was making him... _anxious_.

Amy, though, continued as though she hadn't heard. "What's going on with her and your younger self, exactly?" Leaning over as they walked, she nudged him with her elbow again.

"Amy—" Rory began. It probably wasn't the best idea to antagonize the designated driver, even if she didn't see what she was doing that way.

It didn't matter. The Doctor talked right over him as though he hadn't spoken at all, the volume of his voice rising. "Nothing. Nothing at all," he told her. Maybe it was just Rory's imagination, but he thought that he detected more than a note or two of bitterness in those words, though it seemed unlikely that the Doctor himself had noticed them.

"You were holding hands," she challenged at once.

"I've held _your_ hand!" he pointed out, his voice shooting up in pitch and indignation as well as anger.

Rory blinked. "You've held her hand?" he cut in sharply. This was not okay with him. There really weren't any words for how not okay this was. Both of them turned and looked back at him, the words 'Oh, please,' written in every line of their expressions. "No!" he insisted, "She tried to kiss you! It's not like you can use the 'it's all in your head' line; I have a perfectly legitimate reason to be upset by this!"

"It was just a kiss," Amy said, trying to be placating. The Doctor coughed delicately into his fist, increased his pace subtly, and proceeded to devote all his attention to studying the roofs of the buildings surrounding their little group. "I don't know why you're so upset. I'm a kissogram. I kiss people."

"Did he pay you, then?" Rory demanded, feeling the color rising in his cheeks.

Amy glowered at him. "He hasn't got any—"

"_Then why did you kiss him?_"

"Rory," she said, falling back to walk beside him and taking his arm. He let her, albeit a tad stiffly. "I thought we weren't going to do this."

"You _decided_ we weren't going to do this," Rory corrected. In contrast to the Doctor's, the bitterness in his voice wasn't exactly difficult to pick out. Amy made a pouting face at him, and he felt his anger soften a bit despite himself. "Amy, it wouldn't have been such a big thing, except that…" That what? That he wasn't absolutely sure that she hadn't said 'yes' just to prove to herself—and to the Doctor—that she wasn't waiting anymore? That she'd made him dress up as this man for far longer than he'd been comfortable doing it? That when she was around the Doctor, she seemed so much… lighter and freer and _happier_ than she'd ever been with him? How could he say any of that out loud? And with the Doctor walking right in front of them? … Well, actually, at that exact point he wasn't walking—he had paused next to one of those Public Address systems, and was currently pulling out a large amount of colorful wiring. Still, the point stood; that was _not_ going to happen.

"I really don't see how it's too different from a stag party," she informed him reasonably, apparently unable or unwilling to see the struggle that felt like it was sitting so obviously on his face. "Just think about it like that, okay?"

Rory was unconvinced, although he could see her point. "… Like a stag party," he said flatly. She nodded, her eyes bright and her cheeks very pink. Without waiting for any further response from him, she clapped him solidly on the arm with her free hand and fairly skipped off to see what the Doctor was up to. Rory sighed and briefly looked down at the ground, collecting his thoughts. "… Right." It was probably fine. He was just being insecure. Fine. It was… fine. Okay. Drawing in another deep breath, he mentally shook himself and hurried to catch up with the other two.

"… I don't get it." Amy was saying, trying to peer around the Doctor to get a look at what he was doing.

"Give me a minute," the Doctor said, his voice distant and his expression focused as he ran his humming sonic screwdriver up and down the bundle of cables. "There is something," he continued slowly, "In here… something that shouldn't be… Ha!" Amy and Rory both flinched a little at the unexpected exclamation as the Doctor pulled out a sort of… computer chip, his expression utterly delighted. In the few moments they'd been distracted, he seemed to have located his usual good humor and kicked his grumpiness into remission. "Do you know what this is?"

"… No," Rory said honestly after a moment.

"This," the Doctor said, waving the thing in front of their noses, "Is what's holding up the network, if I'm right. It receives layers and layers of code contained in something innocent, like a rhythm or a simple series of notes, and that code, those instructions, filter through to the subconscious minds of everyone listening." He turned the little chip this way and that, his eyes intent. "It's been there, under everything, probably even when the system wasn't actively broadcasting."

"But…" Amy pursed her lips. "It's in the Public Address system, Doctor. For that to be effective, it would have to be in every single one of these, all over the planet."

"No, not necessarily," the Doctor contradicted her, his eyes still on the chip. The way he was looking at it was a little… strange. "It could just be city-wide. The underlying point stands, though; somebody in the government had a hand in this."

"… How did you know that was in there?" Rory asked blankly.

"Because the bit with the earpods didn't actually make sense; saying that a network like the one used by Cybrus Industries could take control of a mind without the use of those earpods would be like saying that I could plug an AC only appliance into a DC power outlet. Actually, it would be more accurate if it was plugging an AC appliance into a human brain, and that's completely ridiculous. I just didn't want to say 'I have no idea' in front of that lot." Rory rolled his eyes, and Amy gave him a dark look. The Doctor smiled happily at both of them. "But now I think I've got it, so no harm done!"

"That doesn't actually answer my question," Rory told him.

"I was getting to it," the Doctor replied defensively. Then he paused for a long, long moment; when he continued, his voice was much quieter. "It's… I've seen it before. It just took me a while to notice that everyone else was acting a bit odd, as well, and that threw me off. Ordinary people with minimal telepathic ability, I mean," he added quickly, seeing their confused expressions. "This sort of thing effects everyone, and… with the Aaunvanthi being and loud and very, very obvious, I…" He shook his head sharply, as if to clear it, then frowned and started digging through his jacket pockets.

"How is everyone else acting odd?" Amy asked blankly.

"Don't you think it's strange that no one tried to fight back?" the Doctor asked distantly, most of his attention still on sorting through whatever he kept in those pockets of his, "Usually, that's the _first_ thing people try, even when someone like me is there telling them _not_ to do it. Survival instinct. See if you can fight back; if you can't, run away." He glanced up at her. "Nobody's even tried. This moon has a military, a special operations division sort of like UNIT. Where are they?"

Amy frowned. "… Okay…? Then what's controlling the Aaunvanthi?" How had she remembered what they were called? Rory was still mentally referring to them as 'Spiky Green Aliens'!

The Doctor shrugged absently, then brightened and pulled something out of his pocket. It looked like a sort of rough gaming controller, with wires sticking out, little lights blinking in various spots, and a few buttons. It also was much, much too large to have fit in the pocket of the Doctor's tweed blazer, and Rory gave it a rather alarmed look which the Doctor himself completely ignored. "Hm? … Oh. It's the same system. There's probably a simple message on top- 'Be afraid, be very afraid,'—and then a more complicated and overpowering one underneath, where only telepathic minds can even get close. Something that allows simple commands to be sent and received via the psychic network once someone is made vulnerable to it." He was making this up. He had to be making this up! What kind of rubbish explanation was _that?_

"What, like a…" Amy paused briefly. "Sort of… remote control?" The Doctor made a vaguely affirmative noise as he began fiddling with his new toy. He seemed to be trying to connect the mind control chip to it, but wasn't having much luck. "Doesn't that mean that you can follow the signal back to the source of the command, or something?"

He shook his head. "No, unfortunately it's not that simple. The whole thing is being relayed through a series of satellites, which I can't access."

"Wait…" Rory said slowly, "If that's true, what you said about the first level of the code… thing… then you probably just sent … _him_ and Rose off for no reason. If everyone's that afraid, then it's no wonder there haven't been any police."

"Rory," the Doctor replied calmly, "You are absolutely right. That was stupid of me. Oh, well, moving on."

Amy stared at him. "… You did it on purpose," she said, her expression uncertain. Tense, somehow. "Why?"

"Come on, Amy," he said, smiling and leaning closer to her. Rory fought against the automatic surge of anger and resentment, his jaw clenching. "You haven't even asked me what the best bit is."

She sighed, rolling her eyes, and the strange tightness in her face vanished. "Okay. What's the best bit, Doctor?"

He beamed at her. "I can use this," he said, waving the funny, blinking device around, "To find who installed it. Really, the machine that was used to install it, but at least it'll point us in the proper direction."

Rory stared at him for a long beat, and shot a look at Amy to see if this was normal. If he read her face correctly, it was definitely on the strange side, even by the Doctor's standards. "… Um… How?"

"Well, since you asked," the Doctor began delightedly, "The wiring in electronics decays, but never in exactly the same way. It leaves residue in a kind of fingerprint on anything it's connected to, like this chip. This device—" He wiggled the thing around. "Measures the subtle differences in the electrical output of everything in the immediate vicinity—"

"And points you in the right direction of whatever made the fingerprint," Amy interrupted impatiently.

"-And points me in the right direction of whatever made the fingerprint!" the Doctor concluded. He gave the chip a little flick, something clicked into place, and the device instantly made a funny whirring sound, the daft little lights blinking madly. "This way!" he trumpeted, and then he was off, sprinting down the street with the device held out in front of him.

Amy grinned at Rory, who managed a smile in return (really, what in God's name was he doing here?), and then he was running after the Doctor, who seemed to have problems following whatever directions his little _thingy_ was giving him. Occasionally he would stop, look around in confusion, shake the thing until it made another whirring, bubbling sort of noise, at which point he would shoot off like a rocket once again. They took two or three wrong turns and had to backtrack… and worst of all, the streets were utterly free of life the entire time. The only sounds were their feet pounding against the concrete (or was it concrete?), their labored breathing. Or, rather, his and Amy's—the Doctor's breathing, though definitely faster, was measured and calm, as though all the running was simply second nature to him.

"I don't like this," Rory said during a pause in the run, his voice very, very soft- breathless. Amy shot him a look that was two parts confusion and one part concern. "This…" _I'm afraid, Amy._ "Something's wrong, and I think the Doctor knows it. They were expecting him, and… there's something he's not telling us."

"The Doctor… he's sort of famous, among the right sorts of people," Amy told him, just as quietly. There was a softness, a gentleness to her voice that he rarely heard there; she was trying to comfort him as best she could. "Lots of people know him."

Rory shook his head. "I don't like it," he muttered. He wanted to get out of there. Right then.

"That's the signal, Rory," the Doctor's voice put in loudly, and the pair of them blinked and looked up. "You're starting to be effected; we've been here long enough. It can't make you afraid if you're concentrating on being brave. Concentrate."

"… What about Amy?" Rory asked quietly.

The Doctor smiled a very little bit, though he didn't look up from his stupid little machine. "The day I have to tell Amelia Pond to be brave, I might as well stop," he replied evenly. Out of the corner of his eye, Rory saw Amy go bright pink, but before either of them could respond, he called, "Here we go!" and vanished around a corner.

Rory glanced at Amy, who was in the middle of carefully rearranging her features back into bland indifference, but he caught the pleased light in her eye and the slight curve to her mouth. It didn't help that she was still blushing. Since when did Amy Pond blush? "I guess we should…" he began.

"Yeah," Amy agreed quickly, brushing her hair out of her face with absent fingers, "Absolutely." That decided, they went around the corner after him, expecting to see the man pelting down the street in front of them once again.

Instead, they saw an open door.

Exchanging another, more puzzled look, the pair stepped out of the diminishing light and into what looked suspiciously like a pub. The lighting was soft, orangey, and intimate, with a few tables scattered around the room and a bar made out of some weird, purple metal. There were a few people inside: a young, good looking man with brown hair sat at the bar, several empty glasses in front of him, and a middle-aged woman was slouched behind one of the tables, her eyes distant and her expression hard. The bartender was a slight, nervous looking man with round, green-glass spectacles… and if there was anyone else in the dingy room, Rory could not see them.

The Doctor was standing just in front of them, stock still. Cautiously, Amy and Rory walked up to stand beside him, Rory trying to follow his stunned, wide eyed gaze. He was looking at… the young man at the bar. Blinking, he looked back at the Doctor, who drew in a deep breath and softly said, "No."

"Sorry?" Rory asked blankly.

"I'm the one who's sorry," the Doctor told him, his expression slowly shifting from stunned to incredibly tired as he ran a hand over his face, "I really am, but it has been a rubbish day, and... I can't remember the last time I said this, or, really, had the _option_ of saying this, but I'm going to need a minute. Possibly as many as five. You can do whatever you want; order a drink if you like, but don't let him—" He indicated the young man at the bar by inclining his head slightly. "Leave this pub. See you in five minutes." Amy let out a soft, rather strangled little sound, and Rory automatically reached down and took her hand in his; her fingers squeezed back too tightly for the gesture to be one of affection. Apparently unaware of the reaction his word choice had provoked, the Doctor turned and started to leave while they gaped at him like a pair landed fish, but then glanced back and added, "Oh, and Rory, don't let Amy flirt with him." He paused, pursing his lips. "That is one mess I don't want to clean up." And then he was gone.

Rory turned to look at Amy, who looked about as lost as he felt (and much _more_ panicked, for once), then examined the man at the bar again. Finding nothing to explain the Doctor's odd behavior, he blinked and shrugged. "Care for a drink?" he asked Amy.

"You have no idea," she muttered.


	9. Chapter 9: Multiplication

Chapter 9: Multiplication

* * *

"...I was thinking something… more… I don't know… Bond."

Rose snorted inelegantly and looked up at him as she hurried to match his long legged stride, her eyebrows raised skeptically. "Oh, righ'," she chuckled.

His eyebrows went up as well, his surprise apparently completely genuine, with just a hint of wounded pride to the expression—enough to make her press her lips together just to keep from laughing. "What? I'm not good enough for Bond theme music?"

"No," she told him frankly, looking him straight in the eyes, "He's too… cool."

"Cool?" He frowned at her. "Alright, Rose Tyler, in what way am I not as 'cool' as James Bond? Because, just thinking about it, I think I've got him beat in _every_ category. My tech is better, my suits are classier—"

"You wear trainers," Rose put in, her tone one of objection.

"I wear trainers," The Doctor agreed, his tone one of somebody adding a supporting article to an already long list.

Rose bumped into him with her shoulder, annoyed. "It's not the same _sort_ of cool. He's…" She searched briefly for a word, then smiled, the expression a touch wicked. "Smooth."

He frowned again, but this time the expression just looked confused. "… Oh." he said. He had no idea what the hell she was talking about; it was obvious, just looking at his face. "Okay."

"Like… Captain Jack was cool like James Bond. You're cool like... Dumbledore."

"… I'm cool like a fictional wizard?"

"Yup!" Rose confirmed smugly.

The Doctor seemed to think about this, and did not look particularly pleased with the implications. "… So… If Jack wanted the James Bond theme music, _he_ could have it?"

"Absolutely," Rose replied at once.

The Doctor pressed his lips together, looking irritated to the extreme, either by her answer, her lack of hesitation in giving it, or both. Rose looked up at him, her tongue poking out from between her teeth as she smiled. This was easy. This was so easy. Maybe everything was fine; maybe she didn't have to worry about this new Doctor and the problems that he represented. Maybe-

As if to spite her, a strikingly familiar sound filled the air- a whooshing, mechanical sort of rhythmic gasp. Rose immediately went stock still, and she felt the Doctor tense beside her at exactly the same moment. "That's a TARDIS," he said quietly, and she looked up at his grim expression for a moment before turning her attention back to the spot where the sound was loudest—apparently the spot where this new TARDIS was preparing to land.

Slowly, very slowly, an eerily familiar blue box materialized in front of them, fading in and out, in and out, but fading in more solidly every time. Then there was an almost bell-like resonance, and the noise stopped. The TARDIS, indistinguishable in every way from the one that Rose knew, stood in front of them.

Before either she or the Doctor could comment on this, the door opened, and a red-headed woman stepped out, her long hair pulled back in a bright tail, and the expression on her narrow face pinched with annoyance, or maybe with anxiety. They only got to see that particular expression for a split second, though, because then she saw them, and her eyes bugged out, and her mouth dropped open. "… uh…"

They could hear things rattling around from inside the TARDIS, and then the Doctor's voice—HER Doctor's voice—sounded from inside. "Donna, did you see where I put my sonic screwdriver? I thought I left it on top of the monitor…. Wait… No. Sorry. You're going to have to give me a couple of minutes." And then there was more rattling, clanking, and general noise.

The woman in front of them gaped, and a tiny, strangled noise escaped her. "You're…" she said in a very small voice, pointing at the Doctor. "And you… but… I gave you my keys!" She stared at Rose for a long moment, the intensity of her gaze making her feel extremely uncomfortable. Then she drew in a deep breath, and seemed to return to whatever was normal for her. "Doctor," she called back, "Come out here for a minute." There was a pause, and she rolled her eyes. "Please."

"No—Yes, I'll be right—"

"NOW." Rose winced a little and shot another, more furtive look over at the Doctor beside her. He looked mildly alarmed, but when the woman turned back to stare at them again he hurriedly turned his face into a blandly polite mask.

The next moment, another Doctor poked his head out, his face identical to the one Rose knew so well. His perpetually mussed hair looked a little longer on top, and his suit was a plain blue instead of the brown pinstriped one she was used to, but other than that... "Alright, what is so—" He stopped, and stared. Weirdly, he seemed to spend only a moment on himself; then he turned his attention solidly to Rose, who was starting to feel a little sick to her stomach. He wasn't identical, after all—not really. He looked older, and very tired—maybe even a little ill. Most of the difference, however, was in his expression.

The look on his face as he gaped at her was… _frightening_. It was like the face of a man who had been wandering endlessly through a desert just as he caught sight of a stream—one that might or might not be a mirage. And she'd thought Donna's eyes had been intense. "… Oh," he said, his voice ash soft. There was entirely too much behind that little word; Rose bit her lip and looked away without quite knowing why. Despite appearances, this wasn't her Doctor anymore than the one in the Bowtie was. And yet…

And then HER Doctor, the real one, the one she knew and trusted and loved muttered, "This has officially gone from unlikely to completely impossible."

Rose frowned over at him. "… Wha'?"

"The odds of running into another version of myself accidentally are infinitesimal," he told her. His expression was distant—most of his mind was somewhere else. He was already five or six mental steps ahead of what he was now explaining to her, no doubt. "But two versions? In one day? Oh," he added absently to his newest older self, "You should probably go."

"Doctor," the woman named Donna muttered, "What is this?"

"Leave it, Donna," the older Doctor replied wearily before asking, "Why? Aside from the obvious complications, I mean." He was pointedly NOT looking at Rose, now, and the way that he was doing it reminded her even more forcibly of Eleven.

"Oh, something about cracks in the universe," her Doctor replied lightly, "But more to the point, somebody probably _wants_ you here. Wants all of us here, and has some means of drawing us in. With situations like this, it's probably best that somebody doesn't get what they want. Plus, I really don't want to have eight and nine showing up in the same place if I can avoid it." He frowned, stuffing his hands into his pockets. "Thing is… we just picked this place at random, to let the TARDIS' engines cool down. How—"

Suddenly, both Doctors blinked and looked at each other. "The TARDIS," they said simultaneously.

"It's got to be," the older one said curtly, still not looking at Rose, "I just had the directional settings on random, so—"

"Random?" Donna interrupted sharply, "You promised me a spa, Spaceman. I was a FACE on a bloody talkin' STATUE, and you _promised_ me a _spa!_"

He rolled his eyes. "Well, I was just—Anyway," he interrupted himself impatiently, "If it's effecting TARDIS', I can try to isolate it and cancel out any signal out, at least. You're right; we don't want—" Ironically, a familiar gasping, mechanical noise chose that exact moment to start up. Rose's Doctor groaned and ran a hand over his face, while the other one let out a breath and ran a hand through his hair. "Blimey. What the hell have you gotten yourself into, and…. Actually, why don't _I _remember it?"

"I'm probably going to take head trauma, with my luck," the younger version replied somewhat sourly. "Well, _more_ head trauma." The older version winced sympathetically, but made no other comment.

The next moment, someone wearing a purple sweatshirt practically barreled out of the newly materialized TARDIS, coming in their direction, and Rose almost choked on the air she breathed. "So wha's this? Is this a planet? Not a space station—a proper _planet?_" the girl asked, half-turned to look back the way she'd come.

"Rose, stop!" said a voice from inside. A very, very familiar voice. The girl froze in the act of pushing her long hair out of her face. "Good. Take two steps back."

"… Why?" the girl asked slowly.

"Um…" Rose began uncertainly. The girl turned to look at her, and… "Hullo." _Oh. My. God. _It was like looking into a mirror, except that her hair was still long.

The other Rose—the younger Rose—let out a choked little squeak and fell back another step, her hands coming up to cover her mouth. "Oh my God. Tha's me. How is that me? Tha's ME!"

"Yes," the other newcomer said in his distinctive, northern accent as he walked up behind Rose's younger self, his tone a little too pleasant. "Well done, that's you. Now shut up." His blue eyes tracked briefly over Rose, then focused on one Doctor, then the other. So… Now there were four? Rose… Rose number two? This was mad. SHE was getting very mixed up. "So… what's all this?"

"Never mind that," the Doctor in the blue suit snapped, "I was just leaving. He has to sort this out."

"You're not joking," the skinny, beaky-looking Doctor said lightly, and Rose felt an irrational surge of affection for this particular version. She missed him, she realized. "This is a proper mess. The TARDIS should know to avoid herself. How-"

"I'm not really-" began the one in the pinstripes.

"Look, you've got to-" the one in blue groaned.

" Oi!" Rose said sharply. Everyone (including herself) turned to look at her, and she immediately turned bright pink. "Okay, so…" she began loudly, "I already have two Doctors to deal with, and tha's enough, thanks. You all love talkin' to yourselves anyway, but this is _really_ not the time, so… You," she continued, indicating the Doctor in the blue suit, "Do your cancellation thing before we have too many Doctors and TARDIS' to manage. You… take other me to a beach." Everyone stared at her somewhat blankly. "Well? Go on!"

Donna tittered, while the Doctor in the leather jacket blinked, looking mildly impressed. "… Right," Blue Suit said, then turned and went back into his TARDIS without another word. Donna continued to look at everyone for a moment, her expression thoughtful, and then hurried after him.

"Be sure to erase this from your memory!" the Doctor beside her shouted after them suddenly, "Eleven didn't remember this, and I don't want to disturb established events if I can avoid it."

They heard Donna growl, "You're not pokin' through my head, sunshine!" and then the door snapped shut behind her.

The Doctor in the leather jacket—Big Ears, as she thought of him—shot her a huge grin, then turned and walked back into his own TARDIS. The other Rose followed him silently, her face showing uncertainty, fear, and irritation in equal parts. "So… Do you want to go to the beach? I can write myself a note," he said. Rose heard her younger self make a noncommittal sound, and then they vanished inside as well. The next moment, the whirring noises began, and that particular TARDIS began to vanish, although the version that belonged to Blue Suit stayed where it was.

Silence reigned for a few long moments. Neither member of the remaining pair could seem to think of anything much to say. "Blue?" Rose said finally, glancing up at him.

The Doctor shrugged. "Didn't look bad," he admitted thoughtfully.

"I like this one," Rose said, tugging lightly on his pinstriped sleeve. He smiled down at her, the expression having more to do with his eyes than his mouth, but before he could respond the door of the remaining TARDIS opened a little, and Mr. Blue Suit himself poked his head out, his black rimmed glasses perched on his nose. Suddenly, Rose noticed that his suit _was_ pinstriped- specifically with a dark grey color that almost blended into the blue; the discovery of that little detail made her feel both better and worse at the same time.

"I found it, and I'll run a cancellation signal once I'm in the vortex." Absently, he opened the door a little wider and leaned against the frame, simultaneously removing his glasses and sticking them back in his front pocket. "… It's… Whoever did this, they know the TARDIS. They know her systems. It's just a little line of code, broadcast across space and time, but it fits perfectly into her random landing protocols—weights the dice in favor of right here, right now. " He paused, eyes serious. "Be careful."

"Oh, you know me," her Doctor replied brightly.

It might have just been Rose's imagination, but she thought that Blue Suit's dark, shadowed eyes flicked to her for a second. "Yeah," he replied shortly, his expression completely flat. He slipped back inside, and the door clicked shut again.

As that TARDIS vanished as well, she let her hand slip down, entwining her fingers with his. "Doctor," she whispered, "I'm afraid."

He was silent for a moment, and his hand tightened a little on hers. "I know," he said quietly. They stood in silence for a moment or two, and then he tugged lightly on her hand. "Come on."

She blinked over at him. "The Police Station?" Somehow, in the midst of the mad little party they'd just had, she'd completely forgotten.

"Mmhm," he confirmed, then continued ruefully, "Although I wonder if we should bother going at all."

Rose frowned. "Why?"

"Because," he explained, his tone neutral, "There's about a 75% chance that Eleven sent us just to make sure we stayed busy."

Rose's frown deepened. "What? … Why would he do that? … How d' you know?"

"Because that's what Nine would have done if he'd been forced to team up with Eight, and the relationship here seems to be fundamentally similar." His brow furrowed. "The question is: why?"

"Nine?" Rose asked.

"Big ears. Eight was the one before that." Something in his jaw tightened. "He… was the one who destroyed…"

Rose got it. "Galifray." He just nodded, his eyes locked on some memory or other. From the look on his face, it wasn't a very pleasant one. "You blame him."

"He's me," the Doctor replied dully, "So yes. But for Nine…" He trailed off, then shrugged, apparently unable to find the words he wanted.

Rose chewed on her lower lip, thinking about how bitter the Doctor had been back then, how angry. He'd had some of the same mad, bouncy cheer that this newer Doctor so often displayed, but underneath that there had always been that simmering rage. "He blamed the other one. Eight. Specifically."

The Doctor nodded. "Which makes no real sense; it's not Eight's fault any more than it is Seven's, or Four's." He made a face. "He's just the one who got stuck with it. All timing. Any of us would have made the same decision. It's the Doctor's fault; the incarnations are just different expressions of the same basic person. Putting the blame on one in particular is really only dealing in semantics."

Rose digested that for a second, part of her wondering at this strange, sudden openness. She'd never gotten this much out of him about his past. Never. This business with Eleven had really shaken him. And… did this mean that her Doctor had or would do something like that again? Something that would make Eleven act that way around him? _He was acting that way around you, too,_ a small part of her put in quietly. "But…" she began hesitantly, still trying to work it out, "You haven' done anythin' like that. You wouldn'."

His chuckle was completely hollow, and she winced a little at the sound. "Rose, I just said that I _did_."

"But…" She let her protest trail off, then said, "Eleven, he—" _He said that you love me,_ she thought suddenly, desperately. At least… that's what she thought he'd been saying. Somehow, right then, she needed to know, one way or the other. It had never really mattered before, but she could feel grains in the hourglass running out somehow. Her time was limited; she just knew it. _He said that you would lose me, or that I would lose you, and he said that it would… hurt you._ Without wanting to, she pictured Blue Suit's haunted eyes, so similar to the ones she knew, and heard Eleven's calm voice. '_It makes for broken, desperate, unspeakably lonely men who are so sad that they literally don't know what to do with themselves. That, in turn, leads to stupid decisions, which lead to people dying. Innocent people. People who could have—should have- lived_.'

"He what?" the Doctor asked, his voice and face growing substantially sharper.

Rose hesitated. "Like you said," she replied finally, "It doesn't mean that you did anythin' wrong. It probably just reminds him of somethin' he'd rather forget. " She was lying. Lying to the Doctor. What was wrong with her?

He started to reply, then his whole body abruptly went wire tight. "… Why am I telling you this?" he asked slowly. His hand dropped hers with jarring suddenness. She looked up at him, uncomprehending. "No—really," he continued, the alarm on his face growing, "I don't talk about this. Ever. So…" His brows drew together in something that looked uncomfortably like outright consternation. "Really… I… What am I doing?"

"Doctor…" Rose said, her tone of voice cautious. It was the sort of voice you used with a trapped animal.

"Something's wrong," he continued distractedly. He swallowed visibly, his adam's apple bobbing. She couldn't even be sure if he'd heard her. He was looking around, his eyes tracking from building to building—searching for something. "Whatever—whoever was in my head must've—"

"Doctor!" Her voice was higher this time, more brittle, and her hands were balled into fists. He looked at her, finally-through her, really, but at least his eyes were pointed in her direction. "What's happenin'?" she asked slowly, firmly, "How can I help?" He was scaring her—really, honestly scaring her—and she could feel her breath coming too fast.

"Police station," he said as he turned, still obviously preoccupied, though the sharp crack of authority had returned to his voice. "Come on!" And then he was off, running at a dead sprint.

"Wait—Doctor!" Rose called after him. He either didn't hear her or didn't care enough to stop. She had to assume the former, because he always cared; he was her Doctor. She'd… just have to trust him. She _did_ trust him. That was that. Taking a deep breath, she started trying to catch up.

She made it two or three jogging steps before someone caught her around the wrist and violently yanked her sideways. She was too surprised to manage anything louder than a half-strangled yelp as she lost her balance, and then she was toppling over into the dark space between a sort of office building and a high, sturdy-looking wall. Her last glimpse of the Doctor before said wall obscured her vision was of him continuing down the street, his brown coat flying out behind him like a pair of mad wings. He probably hadn't heard a thing…

Her body hit the ground hard, and all the air in her lungs was forced out in a great, painful rush. Part of her just wanted to surrender. It would be safer, and she was _afraid_. _I am not getting captured again_, she thought furiously to herself, _Not happenin'_. She'd already played the damsel in distress on the space ship with the magic doors to France, and that was enough for one day, thanks.

Instead of lying there and gasping, which was incredibly tempting, she fumbled around with her left hand, searching for anything that she would be able to use as a weapon. After a panicked second or two that felt more like an hour, her fingers closed around a kind of slender metal cylinder—a pipe of some sort, she thought. She gripped it firmly as someone's hand closed over her shoulder, and then spun up and around into a half-sitting position and swung her weapon like a club, directly towards her surprised assailant's head.

* * *

_AN: I am back at school, now, my ducks; updates will once again be slower than I would like. However, guilt does tend to make me write; that's why I got this chapter out even as quickly as I did. How dare you guilt-trip me with your thoughtful and thought-provoking reviews? Have you no shame? ... I suppose this is my cranky, old-lady way of saying 'thank you for the support'. Now shoo. Go read LOTR fics for a while; it'll be good for you._

_Also, if anyone knows a good beta for this sort of fic, I'd appreciate a PM pointing me in the right direction. I'm horrible at editing my own work.  
_


	10. Chapter 10: Interview

Chapter 10: Interview

* * *

Amy was, in fact, afraid. She wished it were otherwise. She wished that the Doctor's confidence in her could have inspired her to be better than she really was, but it hadn't. Maybe it was just that signal he kept nattering on about; maybe it was just how she really was. Privately, she sort of thought it might be the latter. Rory, Jeff… even the Doctor seemed to be convinced that she was this amazing person. A strong person. Mostly because that was who she acted like. But she wasn't; it was a lie, it was all a lie, and he'd said that he would be back in five minutes, but he wouldn't, hadn't before, because nobody ever came back, and her parents were gone, and the Doctor was gone, and Rory was still here, but how long would that last, and what good was he, anyway? Oh, God, everything, absolutely EVERTHING about her was a lie, but everyone had believed it, and now she was completely fu-

"Care for a drink?" Rory asked, his tone surprisingly calm. Well, maybe calm wasn't exactly the right word; it was sort of a… 'c'est' la vie sort of statement.

Amy swallowed down the cold, hard lump in her throat. That signal was… really something. "You have no idea," she replied tersely.

"No," Rory agreed after a moment, amiable, "I probably don't. …What sort of drinks do they have in the year four billion?"

"How am I supposed to know?" she hissed, annoyed, "It's not like the Doctor keeps brochures in the TARDIS." Her eyes flicked over the man at the bar, taking in the details. He was dressed in a pseudo-military style, deeply black coat that seemed to absorb the diffused glow of the pup's lighting without casting any of it back. He really was… almost alarmingly good looking. People didn't look like that outside of American superhero films. "I wonder how he knows him," she added quietly.

"There are," Rory said carefully, "A lot of empty pints in front of him."

"So?" Amy replied, reasonable, "It'll be that much easier to make sure he stays here."

"Are you going to come say hello?" The voice was a resonant, almost musical baritone—the kind of voice that was actually enjoyable to listen to. It was also distinctly American. If the speaker was, in fact, drunk, his voice gave no indication of it. Amy and Rory both started. The man at the bar was looking right at them, his expression somewhere between annoyed and morose. "It's not very nice to talk about people behind their backs," he added calmly, his tone both warm and cordial on the surface, while somehow managing to be icy cold right underneath.

Amy and Rory exchanged looks. Rory's look said 'Never mind the Doctor; let's get the hell out.' Amy couldn't see her own face, but she was going for, 'We might as well go say hello, now.' Rory's expression turned a touch panicky, but before he could actually speak Amy was moving past him to the bar. "Sorry," she said brightly, brushing a strand of deeply red hair out of her eyes in a practiced, subtly flirtatious gesture that was supposed to look completely unconscious, "We weren't sure if you wanted company."

The man looked her over, his gloomy expression flickering out like a candle as he evaluated. He was obviously interested, and was seemingly invested neither in hiding it nor in playing it up. He was even better looking this close up, with very blue eyes, deep dimples, a strong jaw, and very white, even teeth; Amy thought she knew his type from her job, and was instantly on her guard. At the same time, her nerves buzzed with something like excitement. This… this could be fun. "Well, hello," he said, flashing her a smile worthy of Prince Charming. "… Nice outfit," he added a beat later, amusement clear on his face.

"Thank you," Amy said, prim.

He quirked a dark eyebrow at her. "It's a vintage piece, isn't it?"

"Is it?" she rejoined smoothly. He didn't think she was that careless, did he? Still, that showed something about him. He recognized the dress as something unusual; either he was a collector, or he was a time traveler, too. Could be either if he knew the Doctor. Interesting. And he had a theory about her, she was sure; if she was careful, she could tease that theory out while still not giving any of her real motives away.

She leaned towards him a very little bit, her eyes bright and her full mouth curving up at the corners. Rory made an uncomfortable sound from somewhere behind them, which they both ignored. Time for a calculated guess. The Doctor wouldn't have come to this place if he'd thought he stood a chance of running into an old 'friend'. "So. I'm guessing you're not a local boy," she continued in a low purr.

His eyes sharpened a little, the difference slight enough that most people probably wouldn't have noticed it, but his face and voice stayed completely light and relaxed as he chuckled. It was a warm, natural sound. "No," he admitted, "I guess not. What about you?"

"Not really local, either. I…" Amy trailed off, pouting briefly in a show of thought. "Travel," she said finally, in the tone of someone telling a partial truth—which, of course, was exactly what it was.

"A worthy lifestyle," he said gallantly, "Can I buy you a drink? …You and your friend," he added after a small but deliberate pause.

She smiled at him, and pointedly did not check with Rory. "Please." The little old bartender, who had been listening in to the conversation as subtly as he could, sidled over to stand in front of them, ready to take her order. Both he and the stranger looked at her expectantly, and Amy felt a brief, too-strong flash of panic before she smirked and said, "Surprise me."

"Adventurous of you," the stranger said, his voice a little dry, and Amy immediately started to feel nervous again. Was there something particularly significant about the alcohol on this moon?

She didn't let it show on her face. "So, what's your name?" she asked, all coy interest. This was like… a sword fight, or something. Parry, lunge, block.

His smile sharpened very slightly, this time, and Amy was reminded briefly of the Doctor. _One thing you never, ever put in a trap… _"I'm not really interested in playing games," he said more quietly.

What was that supposed to mean? "Oh no?" she asked, raising an eyebrow speculatively.

"No. You can stop pretending," he continued, his voice still even, still pleasant, though the volume of it dropped even further. The loud hum of the lighting above them made her strain to catch his words. This was wrong. Maybe—maybe Rory had been right. Maybe-"I can spot a Time Agent from a mile away."

Amy felt herself go rigid. That was a term she didn't know. What did it mean? Whatever it was, something about his too calm face and too pleasant voice made her think that a Time Agent wasn't a particularly safe thing to be, at the moment. "You're wrong," she replied stiffly.

He gave her a look of pure skepticism. "Uh huh. Look, you tell them, and you tell them from me: I am _not_ coming back. They made their bed; now they can sleep in it."

Amy wanted to scoot back, but the stool that she was sitting on seemed to be bolted to the floor; it was probably clear from her posture that she was afraid. This man was absolutely furious, she saw now, and dangerous in a way that made her think of thunderstorms. Once again, she was forcibly reminded of the Doctor. She'd been an idiot to think she could just trick information from a completely unknown quantity. "I-" she began.

His hand covered hers, which she had pressed against the bar in an effort to push herself backward. From a distance—even from as close as Rory was standing—the gesture probably looked affectionate. It wasn't. Amy tried not to wince as his hand fairly crushed hers, instead setting her jaw in defiance, hazel eyes flashing as they met his cold blue ones. She would not be cowed. "Let me give you one piece of advice; get out. It's not worth it. One day, you'll wake up, and a huge chuck of your life will be missing. Months, years—gone. Just like that." He let go of her hand, and she hurriedly returned it to her lap. The stranger, however, just picked up his pint and took a long pull before setting it back down. "Not exactly the definition of job security."

Amy took a deep breath and shot a glance at Rory. He was stretched tight as piano wire, and she wondered if he had noticed the man's painful grip on her, after all. She shook her head slightly, her face fixed and her eyes wide, then turned back to the man beside her. "I'm not here for that," she said curtly.

"Oh, I know," he said, dark amusement making the corners of his mouth twitch. "Give me some credit. You're here because of the satellite system. Honestly, how else could you have found me? That damn thing was trouble from the start."

"What do you mean? What did you have to do with it?" Amy asked quickly.

For the first time during the whole conversation, he looked thrown off guard. "… What?" He glanced at Rory, then back to Amy, frowning. "… You… don't know?"

"Obviously not," she shot back impatiently.

He stared at her for a long beat, like he was waiting for her to shout, 'Only joking!' at the top of her lungs. "I acquired the system," he said finally, one eyebrow up.

"'Acquired' meaning…" Rory prompted, tone cool.

"Stole. Yeah," the stranger confirmed, obviously annoyed, "They were originally from the early 21st century, but they were taken offline after a little more than a year of use. The Archangel Project."

"So you just… took 'em," Amy said, her face impassive despite the gooseflesh that suddenly ran up and down her arms.

"It wasn't like anyone would miss them," he snapped.

"…But… How did you get them out of there undetected?" Rory asked, considering each word carefully, "Even deactivated government satellites are government satellites."

The man raised his eyebrows. "Seriously?" They apparently looked serious, because he continued, though his eyes narrowed even further. "Earth in the 21st century is a level 5 planet. All I had to do was wait for some alien threat to appear—which happens constantly during that century, by the way—and take them in the confusion. I think the most convenient time was in May of 2008, a few weeks after they were shut down. The Atraxi had some sort of prison break, and it ended up being the perfect cover."

Rory blinked. "But that was—"

"Anyway," Amy interrupted firmly, shooting Rory a look, "What are the satellites for? What do they do? I know the Achilles 7 government paid for the job, but what was the purpose?"

He stared at her for a long moment, considering, then asked, "You really _aren't_ a Time Agent, are you?" Amy just raised her eyebrow, and he smirked a little, seemingly despite himself. "Well… Dammit. Should have known, though. A flapper dress from the 1920's?"

"What are they for?" Amy asked again in a low, earnest voice. "It's important."

He seemed to come to some sort of internal decision, then replied, "The Aaunvanthi. Achillies 7 is rich with a rare mineral that's used in the engines of most upper-tier starliners in this time period. The government decided to import the Aaunvanthi. They tunnel, anyway, so it was assumed that they would be just as happy here, mining at the same time."

"Did they get a say in this?" Amy's voice was harder than steel, and just as unforgiving. How could they just…

"I didn't ask," he retorted, exasperated, "The satellite system was to keep them docile and productive. A relay with mind-altering capabilities is illegal to build, according to galactic law. Not to _have_, just to build. The one around earth was thousands of years ahead of its time. It was a loophole. That's it."

"And what's happening now?" Rory demanded.

"Down, boy," the stranger said, completely unimpressed. He even seemed a little amused by Rory's attempt at belligerence.

"Really though," Amy pressed, "What about these attacks?"

"I didn't do the programming. I just picked up, delivered, and installed. Are we done? I need to get off-world before any of the locals decide this is my fault."

"Almost." Amy felt excitement bubbling up inside her. She was starting to get a picture of things. "Did you find out about the Archangel network on your own, or did someone else tell you?"

He frowned, but it was a thoughtful expression rather than an angry one. "…Actually… " he began, his eyes locked on some memory.

Amy nodded her satisfaction. "Great. Thanks," she added hurriedly, her voice as sincere as she could make it.

He looked a little thrown off balance. "I don't remember who—"

"That's fine," she interrupted, "Thanks. Really." She shot him a quick smile as she slid to her feet, grabbed Rory's wrist, and virtually flew out the door of the pub.

"But the Doctor said—" Rory protested on their way out. Behind them the bartender called out a vague protest- something about her drink being almost ready.

"Never mind what the Doctor said," she breathed, her eyes alight, "That isn't who he needs to be worrying about. I-"

They both came to an abrupt stop as they noticed their designated driver sitting on the deserted sidewalk across the street, his back pressed against an obliging building, with one knee bent up in the air and the other leg stretched out in front of him. He was staring off into the distance, not focusing on anything in particular, his face completely unreadable.

Exchanging a puzzled look, Amy and Rory started over to him. "Doctor," Amy began, "What—"

"Shhh…" he hissed. It was only at this point that they noticed the infamous chip, at the moment held between his long forefinger and thumb. A heartbeat after that, they realized that it was making a noise. Specifically, a rhythm in a high-pitched, irritating tone. _Beepbeepbeepbeep. Beepbeepbeepbeep. Beepbeepbeepbeep._ "Someone," the Doctor continued in a deceptively calm tone, "Is trying very, very hard to get my attention. I would _really_ like to know why." There was a long, uncomfortable silence, and then his eyes snapped to his companions, his usual pleasant demeanor making a full recovery. "So! What did we learn from the Captain? Did he seem… upset with… anybody in particular?"

"…Um… The Time… Agency?" Rory replied blankly.

The Doctor visibly relaxed. "Oh. Good. There was this thing… Really should have been there, but I was on Mars, so I _wasn't_ there… for the thing… and I have this aversion to being punched. Or kicked. Or fed drinks with those little paper umbrellas in them, but that's probably not relevant in the slightest at this precise moment. So…" He cleared his throat. "Right. Let's have it, Pond."

She stared at him. "You knew? You sent me in there to… "

"Flirt?" the Doctor supplied innocently, "Of course not, Amy. I'm not that particular; don't be ridiculous. You could have threatened, you could have bribed, you could have played a drinking game; whatever it took. So?" They both glared at him, and he continued to smile benignly up at them from his comfortable position on the ground.

"Fine," Amy muttered finally, sullen, "You might want to take notes; it gets a little complicated."

* * *

_AN: Procrastinating. I don't want to write my math essay. Do NOT expect another update in two days; this will NOT become a regular thing._


	11. Chapter 11: Intervention

Chapter 11: Intervention

* * *

His trainers slapped the street in strict rhythm, the sound echoing and eerie on the completely empty street. This was a residential district, of sorts—mostly apartments and a few smaller shops. It should have been full of sound; in the growing dusk, lights should have on in the apartments. Instead, there was just… nothing.

That was the least of his problems

He could feel it, now. Actually, it was enough to make the beginnings of panic flutter unpleasantly in his chest—the way that foreign _something _was slowly uncurling in his head. He'd noticed it, and now he couldn't un-notice it, not even to concentrate completely on finding a solution to the problem. Nor could he isolate it, not that he'd really made a serious try yet. His own subconscious wasn't a place that he particularly liked venturing into, and his tentative jabs into the space had been deftly avoided by whatever the hell this was. What was it moving around while he tried to figure things out? What was it changing? Would he even be himself in a few hours?

What scared him, what really unnerved him, was how easy it had been to overlook. Only slightly wrong. So close to… well, _him, _to how his mind always worked. If it hadn't started being obvious about the changes it was making, he probably wouldn't have noticed at all. And HOW was it making changes, anyway? That kind of thing didn't happen! Not to him, anyway.

_Wait a minute… Only the sound of my footsteps…_

His eyes shot open very wide, and (without coming to a proper stop first) he turned around so quickly that almost lost his balance. "Rose?" His voice bounced off down the street as his eyes flicked here and there, hoping to see a flash of pink, a strand of blonde hair, or (as a nice change of pace) an actual, complete girl smiling back at him and wondering what the problem was. No such luck. There was absolutely no sign of Rose Tyler. He pursed his lips, glaring at the stubbornly empty road. What did he say? What did he _always_ say?

She was probably fine. She'd probably just found something interesting, and was in the process of poking it with a stick. Sighing quietly, with resigned irritation in every line of his expression and posture, he started back the way he'd come, though at a considerably slower pace. It wasn't as though she couldn't look after herself.

… Although… that ability did seem to fizzle out at the worst possible moments.

"Okay," he muttered, trying to keep entirely fresh alarm off of his face, "Running it is." Accelerating up to a full sprint again, he tried to keep his mind on light things, like how stupid he was going to look if he charged in to save the day and Rose had stopped to tie her shoelaces.

_Help._

For the second time in so many minutes, he came to an abrupt stop, though his expression this time was more uncertain than worried. Had he really heard that? Had it been telepathic? Normally he trusted his senses, but with things the way they were…

_Please!_

"Okay, definitely telepathy." Someone needed help. He helped people. Match made in he Angelic Cluster of the Castibulan Nebula. Unfortunately, this also had 'trap' written all over it, and (much more importantly) Rose was still missing in action. How was he just supposed to leave her on her own, especially since the last time he'd done so, she'd almost gotten carved up for spaceship parts?

_Mummy, where are you?_

The Doctor rolled his eyes in overwhelming exasperation. "Oh, that is just…" Well, that was it. Out of his hands. He shot one last, worried look down the street (_**Please**__ look after yourself properly for a bit longer. Please?_), then stuffed his hands into the pockets of his coat and warily started off down a little side alley in the direction of the voice. Well… the thoughts, really, since it wasn't an actual, physical voice in any sense of the word.

To be fair, it wasn't an alley; it was the space in between an apartment complex and a fenced in garden—a rather impressive one, as it happened. Someone had bright purple pumpkins that, despite being twice the size of his head, looked only about half grown. "Hullo?" he called softly, trying to keep his voice light and friendly despite his caution. He added a small telepathic bump to the word, so that someone operating only on that level would catch it as well.

_Who is that? You are not of the people. Where is my mummy?_

"I'm sorry, I really am sorry, but I don't know. I need to you to tell me where you are, alright?" There was no immediate response, and he was forced to come to a stop. The telepathic signature was from right there… "Really, it's fine. I can help. It's what I do."

_What… you do?_

"Yup! Well, that's always the plan, anyway." Probably not the best thing to say. He continued quickly, still looking around with serious eyes that did not match his carefully cheerful expression. "I usually do manage, though. Pretty impressive track record overall." Where was she? A little girl, he thought… "I'm the Doctor. What's your name?"

_You are a healer?_

"I can be," he replied carefully, "Are you hurt?"

_There was something in my head. It made me feel fuzzy, and I did things. Then it went away, but I feel sick now. _

_Oh._ He knew what this was. Actually, now that he'd worked it out, he felt a bit stupid for not having worked it out sooner. Very slowly and carefully, standing on tiptoe, he peered over the edge of the garden fence, staring straight down.

Huddled in a kind of rough dirt nest that she had obviously hollowed out for herself, there was a green child, dressed in nothing but something that looked suspiciously like an old potato sack. If she had been human, he would have guessed from her size that she was about five or six, but he couldn't remember anything about the Aaunvanthi aging process. Her limbs were frighteningly thin and fragile looking, and she was a lighter green than she should have been. She turned her small, eyeless face up towards his, then immediately hunched down defensively. "It's alright," he told her very softly, "I'm not going to hurt you."

Already, he could feel the anger building at the back of his mind, threatening to blot out rational thought. Someone had dressed a little girl in a potato sack. More to the point, someone had allowed a little girl to become severely malnourished. Somebody was going to answer for it, and somebody was going to answer for it soon. Period. Right at that exact moment, though, he couldn't express his wrath without the child assuming that it was directed at her. Moreover, she was telepathic; he couldn't even think angry thoughts without risk. As such, he locked his fury behind as many mental doors as he could immediately set up, hoping that he could stay calm for the length of a conversation.

The child's posture relaxed a little, and she turned her face up towards him again. _Will you help me? My head hurts…_

Making as little noise as possible, the Doctor unlocked the gate to the garden, slipped inside, and knelt on the damp earth. He tried to stay far enough away to be nonthreatening, while still being close enough to seem supportive; this girl had obviously been traumatized, or at least neglected. Sure enough, now that he was close enough to make up for the failing light, he could see patches of darker green on the stick-like arms and legs. Bruises. The waves of locked-away fury grew. "I will absolutely help you," he said seriously, "Stay still, and stay calm. Can you do that?"

_Yes._

Gingerly, he reached out towards her head with both hands… then abruptly stopped, fingers hovering a breath away from either side of her face. This was wrong. Especially with his mind like this. He couldn't risk it. His defenses were low, if they weren't completely compromised; he could hurt himself, or he could hurt her… assuming that this whole thing wasn't some kind of elaborate set up; he was more vulnerable when he was focusing on connecting to another mind. That last option was a little paranoid, even for him. Still, it would be better to find his older counterpart and let him handle things. The thought made him feel absurdly embarrassed, but there was no help for it. Reluctantly, he lowered his hands.

_You won't help me? _

Why did she have to sound so completely hopeless? "No! I mean—yes! I said that I would. It's just going to be a bit… complicated."

_I thought that Time Lords could fix anything. _

The Doctor smiled at that, a small, rather wry expression. "I wish that were true. Honestly, though, I'm just going to—" The penny dropped. He broke off, body stiffening. "Oh, that is just brilliant," he said very quietly after a beat, all warmth gone from his voice. "You almost had me. Well done."

_I don't understand. _

He stood, slowly, and took a careful step back. The fury was breaking loose, now, turning his veins to ice. "I think you do." There was a certain point when enough was enough, and he had officially reached it. "And here's another thing for you to understand: you are using a child. You're hurting a child. There are a few things that I am completely unreasonable about, and this is one of them. One warning: Let her go. Let them all go, and do it now, or I'll make you." His whole body was wire tight with rage by that point; his limbs buzzed with a kind of electricity. "And you will not enjoy it."

_Well… No point in denying it, I suppose. You obviously can't see it, but I'm making my terrified face. Shall I ask where I slipped up?_

A little thrown off balance somewhere deep underneath all of the anger, the Doctor paused for a moment. "I never told you what I was."

_Oh, that. I didn't think you'd catch it, and I couldn't resist. _

Who _was_ this? "You're not going to let her go." It wasn't really a question.

_I suppose I could, but then you'd start thinking that you're effective, and I'm not one for giving people false hope. By the way, where is your little Rose?_

Rational thinking left the building, truly and completely. This thing, whatever it was, was going to regret ever being born. Expression cold, he turned, opened the gate, and left the way he'd come.

_Where are you going?_

"To find you. Start running."

_Fine. We'll do this the hard way. _

Suddenly, something small and wiry landed on his back; tiny hands pressed mercilessly at either side of his neck. It was the Aauvanthi girl—had to be. How was he supposed to get her off without—

A crack of thunder split the air, and the hands fell away from his throat; the slight weight left his back, and there was a sound of impact behind him. Uncomprehending, he turned and looked down. She was dead—thin limbs splayed haphazardly, a green puddle spreading underneath her head, and a small, neat hole just behind the spot where an ear would have been on a human. Without realizing it, he shook his head in silent, stunned denial. He would have saved her…

Footsteps made him look up, and the soft orange light of a lamp drew his eye to their owner's gun. "_Why did you do that?_" he practically snarled.

"I think the traditional thing to say is 'thank you,'" the man replied dryly. The voice was American, and seemed very, very familiar somehow. The Doctor blinked at him. "Seeing as I just _saved your life_."

Momentarily confused out of his frustration and rage, the Doctor blinked again.

The man followed his gun into the light, clicked the safety on, and stowed it back in his coat, all the while keeping calm blue eyes firmly on the Doctor's face. "Manners are dead. Look, have you seen a girl with ginger hair walk down that street?" He pointed back toward the main road. "Little gold dress, much less attractive boyfriend?"

The Doctor blinked again. "Um."

The man gave him an impatient look. "Um?"

"You're… " This was a disaster. Time lines… How was he going to fix this? Rose… Rose could not see this. He did _not_ want to have to explain it, not to mention anything that it might remind her of, like (for example) certain people that he had abandoned on deserted gaming satellites. At least he could look at this version without wanting to bang his head against a wall; he wasn't a fixed point yet. Pre-London Blitz, then. "Out of luck," the Doctor continued, gathering up the shreds of his composure. "I haven't—" Wait a second. Why was he looking for Amy and Rory? "Seen them in a while," he concluded honestly.

"But you do know them?" Jack asked impatiently.

The Doctor couldn't quite hide a wince. "Well…" he hedged.

Jack looked him over, overt interest flickering in his expression. "I don't think I've introduced myself. I'm—"

"Stop it," the Doctor snapped peevishly.

"I was just saying hello!" Jack replied, indignant.

"I don't know where they are," the Doctor told him, tone flat. This was a con man, not his friend, and he it wouldn't be good for anyone (or the time stream) if he started thinking about all the ways he wanted to teach the con man a lesson.

Exasperation won out over curiosity. "Fine. I just think you should know, they're in way over their heads. If you see them, tell them to get out off world. They seem like nice kids."

The Doctor frowned. "How are they…"

"I can't remember who hired me to complete a certain job for the Achilles 7 government," Jack replied coolly, but there was a dangerous, flinty look in his eyes. "Someone selectively deleted some of my memories, and I have defenses set up that most people don't. I noticed the gaps when your friends asked about the contract."

"What are you talking about?" His hearts were pounding away again. Whatever it was, he could already tell that it wasn't going to be good.

The very young, soon-to-be Captain Jack Harkness gave him a speculative look—a very different brand of speculative than he'd displayed a few seconds before. "Have a minute?"

The Doctor gazed at him with impassive eyes, looked down at the broken form on the pavement, and then back out at the empty street. "Only if you walk and talk," he said finally, voice tight, and stalked off in the direction he'd last seen Rose without waiting for a response.

Jack raised his eyebrows, hesitated, and then followed.

* * *

_AN: Yeah. Didn't have a computer for the vast majority of the summer. . Sorry. Seriously._


	12. Chapter 12: Overwhelmed

Chapter 12: Overwhelmed

* * *

The metal pipe connected solidly, and there was a surprised yelp. "Agh! Rose! What the hell do you think you're doin'?"

Rose, who was still brandishing her weapon and attempting to look fierce, hadn't been expecting that. Her eyes widened in sudden, horrified recognition. "_Mickey?_" The pipe clattered to the pavement, and she threw her arms around his shoulders in an apologetic hug, which was a little difficult, since he had one hand pressed tightly against the right side of his skull. "Oh my God, I'm so sorry! You alrigh'?"

He looked more shell-shocked than anything else, and nodded. "I think so."

She pulled back and glared at him. "Well, good, because that was a bloody _stupid_ thing to do to someone. Couldn't you just, I don' know, _say hello?_ Like a normal person?"

He just shook his head, his expression still stunned, his eyes not quite focusing, and Rose had the sudden, unnerving impression that he couldn't actually see her—not really. "I had to get you out of sight, Rose. You have no idea… "

She took a deep breath. "Alrigh'. Jus'… calm down. Wha' happened?"

Finally, his eyes focused on her. Somehow, it didn't make her feel any better. The whites were showing all the way around his dark irises. "I met… I think I met whoever is doin' this, Rose, and we have to get out of here. I'm tellin' you, we jus'… have to."

Rose was shaking her head before he'd finished speaking, an uncertain frown on her face. "I can't leave the Doctor on his own. As in, literally, even if I wanted to-which I don'—we have no way of getting' off this moon without him, so—_What?_" He was shaking his head, eyes out of focus again. "Mickey, whoever is doin' this, it's the Doctor. He can handle it."

"I's not the Doctor I'm worried about," he replied flatly. "He—" He broke off, shuddered a little, and swallowed before continuing. "It wanted me to think that it was only interested in the Doctor, that if I got him, I could leave with you, but—"

"Wait," Rose said, putting up a hand, confusion lining her forehead. "Interested in the Doctor?"

"Will you forget about the Doctor for one second?" Mickey demanded, his voice shooting up to an almost hysterical pitch. "Rose, I think it wanted you. I almost believed it. I really wanted to believe that it was only after him—I don't think I've ever wanted anything more in my life-but… I think it wants you. It kept asking about you—about events, and things. Like…" He swallowed again and met her eyes. "Like it wanted to know if you were done yet."

Rose regarded him blankly. "_Done?_ Wha's that supposed to mean?"

"How should I know?"

"Well, you're the one who _said_ it!"

Mickey licked his lips. "It was just… He… It kept asking about the Doctor, and you popped up in conversation. Casually. A little… _too_ casually, you know?"

"No!" Rose snapped. She had no idea what was going on, and was getting scared anyway, which was beyond frustrating. "It sounds like he was tryin' to get you to… sell out the Doctor, or something, and…" Something in Mickey's expression made her stop, her breath hitching in her chest. "… Mickey…?"

"I wasn't goin' to…"

Disbelief slowly turned to anger, and her hands balled into fists. "You _were_ goin' to."

"No! It was like… he knew me. He knew how I felt about the Doctor, and the two of you being off together all the time..."

"Probably because he isn't blind or deaf," Rose spat. The betrayal, the sheer unfairness of the situation, was making her feel lightheaded.

"Shut up for a second!" Mickey all but shouted, "I'm tryin' to—"

"Don' tell me to shut up!"

He gripped at her shoulders, fingers digging in painfully. "Rose, you can be angry with me, you can hate me, whatever you want—just promise me that you'll find somewhere to hide and stay put!"

She was already getting to her feet, though the sudden, furious tightness of her every muscle made that difficult. "No. Way."

"Rose—"

"Even if you're right, and this _thing_, whatever it is, is all about getting me, what does that make the Doctor?" Mickey just stared at her. "Bait." As an afterthought, she reached down and picked up the metal pipe again. After testing the heft of it once, she glanced down at him again, disappointment and anger warring for space in her eyes. "Try not to get caught again, alrigh'? " she said finally, fighting to keep her voice even.

"Rose, don't…"

Ignoring him, she turned and walked out of the alley.

… And immediately heard muffled, distant voices. "…don't under… where… going…"

Flinching, she immediately got back behind the building. "That was fast," Mickey noted darkly.

"Oh, shut up," she muttered, straining her ears. Whoever it was, they were getting closer.

"… is the problem? We're not little kids!"

"This is not up for debate, Pond." Pond? … Amy Pond. And that did sound like the other Doctor…

"But what happened? One second, everything was fine, and then suddenly it's 'Whoops! Field trip over.'" Definitely Amy's voice.

"Pretty much, yeah." The words were clipped, barely polite.

"So, sorry, what are we doing?" That was the other bloke. Ro…ry?

"_We_ are not doing anything, Rory. _You_ are going to go back to the TARDIS, clear the rubble, get inside, deadlock the doors, and… I don't know… play Parcheesi. More importantly, you are going to stay inside, no matter what, and _keep_ the doors locked, with no exceptions."

"But why?" Amy again.

"Because I said so."

"That isn't a real answer!"

"No, it isn't. It doesn't have to be. Did I not make that clear? When I say jump, you say how high. This is not a relationship of equals, and I'm _telling_ you that you are going to stay inside until I personally come to fetch you out. End of discussion."

"You're scared," Amy informed him challengingly. No response. "What scared you? What's going on?"

"… Hopefully, someone is playing a very bad practical joke."

"Do you think that's what's happening?" She certainly wasn't letting him off the hook easily. Rose pressed her lips together, caught between wanting to reveal herself and never wanting to talk to that other Doctor again, regardless of the circumstances.

"Not really."

"Then—"

"Amy." That was Rory again. He wasn't much of a talker, was he? "Leave him alone."

"But—"

"Amelia," The Doctor again. Something in the tone of his voice had changed, and Rose abruptly felt vaguely voyeuristic. "There's actually something… Just in case, I probably should…"

"What is it, Doctor?"

Rose's cheeks were suddenly very hot. What was going on, here?

"It's your house." Oh. Maybe it wasn't what she'd thought.

"My… _house_."

"How would you describe it?"

"Is this a joke?" Amy was starting to lose her composure, and Rose couldn't blame her.

"Absolutely not. I never joke about houses. They're important."

"You don't even have a house," Amy pointed out.

"I have the TARDIS."

"That's basically living out of your car, Doctor."

"W-That is not—" There was a pause. "Alright, fair point. Just because I don't have something doesn't mean it isn't important."

"Ugh!"

"Amy, please."

" Fine! Er…. Old? Big?"

"Big. That's half of it. What else?" Everyone was silent for several long moments. Where was he going with this? Amy didn't seem any clearer on the point than Rose was. "…Empty. It's empty."

"Well of course it is!" Amy sighed. Rose could almost hear her rolling her eyes. "It's just me and my aunt, so of course it's empty!"

Another beat of silence, and then the Doctor sighed. "It probably wouldn't have helped, anyway."

"What wouldn't have…?"

"Come on. The sooner I deal with you lot, the less time younger me has to get into very deep trouble. "

"Can we come?" Mickey's voice was right behind her, and loud enough that Rose almost jumped out of her skin. Immediately, she turned around and glared at him.

"What the hell are you doin'?" she hissed.

"Keepin' you safe," Mickey growled back, expression belligerent, "Whether you like it or not. Tha's another Doctor, right? An older one. I heard about him, and _he's_ lockin' his companions up." He stuck his chin out, completely unapologetic. "He's lookin' after them. Why isn't yours doin' that?"

It was too late to do anything about it. "Mickey?" Cautious footsteps sounded on the sidewalk, and then the bowtie Doctor poked his head around a corner, expression politely inquisitive. Then his eyes settled on Rose, and overwhelming relief flickered across his face before he his expression settled into a polite mask again. It was just a flash—gone so quickly that she wasn't sure she'd seen it at all—and left her feeling shaky and uncertain. "Oh, _good_. Yes, you can." Without waiting for a response, he reached out and grabbed Rose by the wrist, pulling her after him. "Come on."

"Hey, what about m—" Mickey began.

"Yes, obviously," the Doctor interrupted impatiently as he rounded the corner, Rose in tow. She shot a last, furious look over her shoulder at Mickey, who glowered back, and then devoted most of her attention to keeping up.

Amy and Rory were waiting for them around another corner, looking both fairly exhausted and very nervous. Nonetheless, Rory offered the new arrivals a small smile and a nod, while Amy managed an actual grin. "Have a pleasant little trip?" she asked Rose brightly.

"Oh, yeah," Rose replied, words dripping with sarcasm, "Brilliant." Amy's grin was catching, though, and she found herself smiling somewhat wanly in response.

Bowtie Doctor was still tugging her along behind him, moving quickly enough that she had to take the odd skipping step in order to keep up. "Where am I? Come on, you lot," he added, shooting a look over his shoulder.

Rose frowned and worried her bottom lip with her teeth. "Um, I dunno." Her eyes came to search his face, but he was no longer looking in her direction. "That is, we sort of got separated." She wasn't sure if she ought to mention Mickey—that was, what Mickey had tried to do. She didn't know if she could ever forgive him, but she didn't want him hurt, either.

Bowtie's voice was calm, but underneath that she thought she detected a hint of a snarl. "Of course you did."

Stung, Rose tried to tug her wrist away from him. It didn't work, so she started trying to dig in her heals. "It's not my—"

But he was already talking again, his tone much softer, almost gentle, though he still did not turn to look at her. "No, of course it isn't." His grip on her wrist slackened. "I shouldn't have…" She waited for the sentence to continue, but he just shook his head once, sharply, and dropped her wrist completely. She rubbed at it, glancing behind her. Amy and Rory were talking quietly to each other, heads bent and almost touching as they murmured to each other. Every once and a while, one or both of them would shoot Bowtie Doctor a look that was halfway between concerned and speculative. Behind them, Mickey trudged, glassy-eyed and miserable looking. Behind that… nothing. Empty streets. No sign of her Doctor.

Shivering, Rose took another skipping step and hurried to catch up with Bowtie. "So," she began quietly, "You're… what? Locking us up in the TARDIS, right?" He glanced towards her, if not precisely _at_ her, but said nothing. "So something bad is happening. Something really, really bad." Again, no response. She frowned down at her shoes, then looked up at his face again. "Are you…" she began, then stopped herself. She wasn't sure she wanted to ask that question. More to the point, she wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer.

His voice was very quiet. "Am I what?"

She could feel tears prickling behind her eyelids. "Are you… are you going to send us away?" She saw his jaw tighten fractionally. "Like you did with me? Are you going to send us away to keep us safe?"

He was silent for a long, agonizing moment, and when he did reply, he sounded small. Lost. "I don't know." A small, humorless smile quirked his mouth, but left his eyes shadowed. "I have no idea."

Her hands were shaking. "Don't. Please." The tears were audible in her voice now, and she hated them. She did not want to cry in front of this person who was not _her_ Doctor. "Don' ever do tha' to me again. I mean it. Promise me."

He still wasn't looking at her. "Rose," he said quietly, and the humorless mile grew in to a joyless little laugh. "Oh, Rose. Even if I promise, I'm a liar. You have no idea."

"I want you safe," she said, somewhat desperately.

He jerked as though she had slapped him in the face and finally met her eyes, his expression stunned. "You…" Then he shook his head again and visibly forced his thoughts together. His calm, composed expression snapped back into place. The smile came back, small and careful and polite. Her Doctor didn't have a smile like that, though… it occurred to her that the one before him, Big Ears, might have had an equivalent expression. "Rose Tyler. You don't give up, do you? So," he added lightly, "What happened?"

"To who?" Rose asked, thrown off balance by the subject change and (she realized later) effectively distracted.

He leaned in closer to her, his breath stirring the hair hear to her ear. "To Mickey," he replied evenly, his voice so quiet she could almost pretend he'd said something else. Then, in a louder tone, he continued, pulling away from her again. "Because something obviously did, and I'm guessing it's important. So what was it?"

Rose frowned up at him, then down at the ground. "I don' actually know," she admitted. "I… It was a bit confusing. He says he met the person behind this."

Bowtie Doctor's expression hardened almost imperceptibly, and something about it was eerily familiar. The Oncoming Storm was still there behind that genial smile and those cool manners. He was still the same, somewhere underneath. Somewhere. "Then it's probably time that he and I had a talk," he replied in a deceptively offhand tone. "Oi! There you are, beautiful girl!" He took two great leaping steps forward, and landed in front of a blue box half-buried in stone rubble and thick wooden beams. It was a brighter blue than Rose remembered.

Eyes bright, the Doctor turned to his associates. "Ready to get back in the saddle?" Some thought flickered visibly across his face. "Amy, remind me: we are going to America, and we're going to be cowboys. I mean it. Remind me."

"Oookay," Amy said crossing her arms.

"Good." He paused. "Now comes the part where we shift rubble as quickly as we can and hope that nobody comes to shoot us or stab us or bash us on the head while we're performing said hard labor." Everyone stared at him. "Oh, what?" he snapped, glaring at them, "I can't have a brilliant solution for everything; the sonic doesn't do wood."

"And then what?" Rory inquired, looking dubiously at the rubble blocking the doors.

The Doctor shot him a deeply annoyed look. "And then Parcheesi. Haven't you been paying attention? Come on, Ror—"

He cut himself off with a sudden yell, jerking back violently enough that he almost fell over. Rose couldn't see exactly what it was, but she could see that the TARDIS was moving, sinking down with the creaking of wood and the sound of moving earth.

Moving earth.

The aliens.

She could hear Amy shouting, "What's goin' on? Doctor? Are you alright?"

"It's the Auunvanthi," Rose muttered, mostly to herself, staring blankly at the sinking TARDIS "They're… The Doctor said that they mostly tunnel." What if they were under the entire city? What if they could hear every footstep that was taken on the surface? How could they hope to hide? What could they even—

With a sudden jolt of mind-numbing fear, the ground crumbled underneath her, and she fell with a yelp. She didn't have enough air in her lungs for a proper scream. Earth filled her mouth, muffled her hearing, and still she fell. Then, finally, she landed on hard-packed earth, and everything went abruptly black.


End file.
